Obama Is Right: Words Matter When You Want Your Opponent to Leave the Race

AOL News reports this:

Despite calls for his rival to drop out of their tight race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama said Saturday, "My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants."

Note the tepid and dismissive "Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants." In one carefully chosen short phrase, Barack Obama uses a verb form that bestows his permission, as if she needs it, while at the same time subtly belittling her because she is staying in the race. Both of these rhetorical techniques aim to diminish one's opponent while seeming to be gallant and awarding oneself the cloak of the putative front runner who can afford to be generous.

But is he the front runner?

Within the same AOL news article is a straw poll asking who readers would vote for. Click on the map and you see that Clinton wins over Obama 52%-48%. To be sure it is an unreliable self-selected poll. Possibly Hillary's numbers are inflated by other people like me who never before voted in those straw polls but who are so insulted by the Obama-supporting pundits and politicians incessantly hammering their "she should quit" nail that we have taken to clicking for Clinton every chance we get. Even the Wall Street Journal has acknowledged the blatant sexism and rampant bias.

On the other hand, the facts are that national polls show the two candidates still volleying back and forth. It made sense for the other candidates to end their campaigns -- Dodd and Biden at low double digits in the polls, and even John Edwards whose contributions were drying up after too many third-place showings in the early primaries and caucuses. But remind me again, why is it that Clinton should quit but Obama should stay in the race when their delegate count is separated by just 133 and Clinton keeps winning the big states the Democrats must have in November to capture the White House?

Perhaps Obama should live up to his gallantry, throw down his cloak Sir Walter Raleigh-esque so the lady can walk over the latest mud slung against her, and into the nomination gracefully. After all, she is the elder, she is the senior of the two senators, she was in this race first, and she has an enormous constituency. In all other aspects of life, the etiquette would be to let her go first.

Or perhaps Obama's statement was merely words after all.

Follow Gloria Feldt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Heartfeldt

Comments

[JJI]

This is a ridiculous blog. I would hope any woman would be horribly offended that she should be "given" the nomination based solely on that fact.

[erinm]

What utter nonsense. Obama should drop out because, well, she entered the race first?! LOL! There are so many things wrong with this post! To think that any suggestion that HRC drop out is sexist is so ridiculous on its face....th­ere are dozens of men who have been asked to drop out in election after election after elecation. This is just a wee bit silly, don't you think? And as a woman I am so tired of heraing a member of my sex cry sexism (especially when so many women out there who really are true victims...­HRC is certainly not). The big state theory (theory #37) has been debunked again and again and again, so I won't go into that here. Obama is saying the same thing as you...she should remain as long as she feels she has a chance. These kind of posts just reinforce the feeling that Clinton is losing, and the only way she can win is to play these verbal, silly games. You are not doing your candidate any favors here.

[AnninCA]

He's just condescending to women in general. He's been called out on this numerous times.

Frankly, that remark was a bit of a challenge to his "progressive" supporters. Now, do they or do they not recognize that his surrogate were out on marching orders to drum her out?

Do they wish to take the position of the naive voter or not?

It's up to them.

If so, they'll accept his remark as gallantry.

If they are savvy, they'll see it for what it was.......­.condensce­nding in a patriarchiacal voice.

He put his supporters on the spot.

Choose. Racism or Sexism.

I think it was one of his bigger gaffes of the season.

[generationyes]

What language are you speaking?

[blueraven]

The gaffe is Ms. Feldt's deliberate use of Obama's remark out of context to attempt to reduce his effusive compliments to her as an afterthought to the first statement, which she also stretches to the point of absurdity.

As for whether I am supporting racism or sexism, I begin to wonder if you realize which side you've landed on with this blind hatred. I looked at the issues and behaviors of the candidates when I made my choice. Did you go past skin color or were you just focusing on the matching 26th chromosomal pair to the exception of anything else? You know, the way Ms. Feldt did in her sexist choice of Clinton over Obama?

[MichaelTenery]

"He's just condescending to women in general. He's been called out on this numerous times. " Really? I don't think he would be married to a strong woman like Michelle Obama if this were true at all. He was raised mostly by his mother and grandmother, with some help by his grandfather.

I am a man but I come from a tradition of feminists. A great grandmother who raise her daughter on her own, and a grandmother who divorced one of the principal flyer-engineers of Beechcraft when he hit her. My mother divorced my father when he drank to much. In my family the women don't put up with bullcrap frop men. The except fair treatment.

It is hard to watch some Hillary supporters using feminism to try to get their candidate elected. I would never use Barack's heritage to try to win any political points. Yet day after day it's "The men bullying the woman again". And "He is being condescending to a woman." Say he is being condescending to her, that's fine but because she is a woman. That is a farcical yarn that has worn so thin you can see through it.

[jungpatawan]

"One of his bigger gaffes?" Oh, Ann, you poor thing. You should keep posting as long as you want.

JP

[TheWesternBreed]

As I recall, in the very same breath Obama called Senator Mrs. Bill Clinton "a fierce and formidable opponent." Not so "condescending in a patriarchal voice" after all, but of course you don't care about mere facts.

[FullChat]

"After all, she is the elder, she is the senior of the two senators, she was in this race first, and she has an enormous constituency. In all other aspects of life, the etiquette would be to let her go first."

These are your criteria to choose a president? Silly, silly, silly post.

It's a shame that with all of these benefits, she has managed to blow the campaign.

[GrandmaJ]

When I read that, I decided the blog was irony. How else to interpret such silly "reasons" for her to be given the nomination?

[wingman1]

Gloria, this is a poor posting. You are being as selective with Obama's statement about hillary as Fox News were with the Wright sermon excerpts. Obama went on to compliment Hillary, unpatronisingly, as a tough campaigner who clearly believed she was the best candidate. Your cherry-picking from his words to serve your own agenda is simply not worthy of you.

[qwr]

Ms. Feldt,

You know this is a fundamentally dishonest post. "Is [Barack] the front runner"? Of course he is. If the nomination were to be decided by ONE informal poll at a random time, then Hillary could be said to have a chance. But it isn't. And what is all this nonsense about "senior"? These personal niceties are irrelevant when we consider what is at stake. Surely McCain is "senior" to just about everyone.

[InfoGiant]

"remind me again, why is it that Clinton should quit but Obama should stay in the race when their delegate count is separated by just 133 and Clinton keeps winning the big states the Democrats must have in November to capture the White House?"

Are you kidding? First, she's down by 167 elected delegates which means the Clinton candidacy was mathematically over after Wisconsin. The fact that she has a tri-fecta of name recognition, political connections that allowed her to pick up some early superdelegates, and a fundraising machine which are all allowing her to stay in the race longer than the other candidates you mentioned whose funds dried up has no berring on reality (much like Clinton's Bosnian Commando story).

No offense, but this AOL straw poll story is really pretty grade school, but right in line with Hillary and her excuses or complaints about the system that was set up for her to win.

Oh, and enough with the "Big States" argument. When Obama is up 15% on McCain in California and Hillary is up 7%, then you're again making a Clinton style argument that only holds water in a fantasy world that isn't based in reality...­and unfortunately, that's exactly what people dislike about the Clinton's: whether it's real or a perception­...the appearance of dishonesty.

http://infogiant.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/hillary-clinton-and-her-credibility-problem/

http://infogiant.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/new-excuse-for-clinton/

[Siryn]

What kind of garbage is this?

Let me guess, the vote-for-H­illary-jus­t-because-­she-has-tw­o-X-chromo­somes argument. Were you saying the same about Hillary before Super Tuesday, when it was all but assumed she would be the nominee? I didn't think so.

[robXdion]

Posts like this makes it very hard for anyone, particularly men to respect women that aspire to leadership roles. When you ignore facts and make articles built on raw emotion while parsing and reading everything into a verb, adjective, or present participle it makes Hillary supporters look utterly ridiculous and borderline mentally ill. She slings mud at him, so his supporters sling mud back so therefore he should lie down his cloak for her to step over it and win the nomination????? You are arguing for Obama to be chilvarous while she runs as a feminist that doesn't demand such notions. Can't have it both ways. You look like a fool for writing this article.

[poingu]

Why not give Hillary the benefit of the doubt, that when she said "He's not a Muslim as far as I know" she really meant nothing more by it? Why not believe that when Obama said "Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants" he actually meant exactly that? Why turn it into hate speech?

For that matter I cringe every time a Democratic leader in this race makes reference to McCain's "hundred years" comment. They imply that McCain said he wants us to be in Iraq for another hundred years of combat, when he meant that keeping a military presence in Iraq, the same way the U.S. has done in Germany and Japan and South Korea and so many other places in the world, is something he can imagine. I may not like that policy, but it has been U.S. policy for decades.

The thing I hate most about our current politics is the way reasoned thinking keeps getting hijacked by wild accusation--Feldt's essay above being a case in point. I blame the candidates, and I blame the press. We need to be smarter consumers and not let viral politics infect our brains.

[RhondaT]

asnevitt, I couldn't agree with you more! It's time we had a woman president, but one who is running a campaign of her own laurels, not based on who she's married to! How can "feminists" back Hillary? I'm not just talking about Bill's philandering, but her whole campaign is based on everything HE did. Sheesh, haven't we women learned by now to step out of our husband's shadows?

[Lon]

Yes Obama is the frontrunner. In a race dependent on delegate votes, he has more delegates. There are not enough primaries remaining for this likely to change, and the delegates who are not bound by the primary process are increasingly coming out in Obama's favor.

So by any reasonable standard he is the frontrunner. In fact it would probably be fair to say he is the prohibitive front runner. The fact that non-scientific polls say otherwise hardly changes that fact. Nor do the various odd alternate voting systems that the Clinton people have been suggesting would have favored her if they had been used.

[SCharb]

Let me defend the semantics of Obamanese. "CAN" is not used to express capability and possibility, but rarely is it used to express permission or consent. For example: "Yes We Can;" "We are the shapers of our own destiny;" etc. In Obamanese, "CAN" is not "MAY." Yes, she can. Yes, she is capable, yes, it is possible, and yes, it's her decision.

Can Senator Clinton run as long as she wants? Yes, she can. Yes She Can. Yes She Can.

[PhoebeFay]

"she was in this race first"

So now we're down to Hillary should get the nomination because she called dibs?!

This post is absurd. Dibs, chivalry, etiquette and an AOL straw poll. Why not just say "please with a cherry on top" and make the absurdity complete.

[iv08]

My favorite part is that now the WSJ is no longer a biased paper. I wonder if Ms. Feldt would be citing WSJ articles if it wasn't one in support of her cause?
Oh and on the "third hand" (this must be the "reality hand" since Ms. Feldt, much like the rest of her like minded Clintonites, seem to be unable to see this one), Sen. Obama has won 2x as many states, more delegates, and more of the popular vote.
If it were me, I'd be much more concerned with the fact that my candidate has no path to the nomination that doesn't go against the decision of more than half of the states.
And can we please stop saying that calling for Hillary to drop out is sexist? People called for Nader to drop out for the last 2 elections and this time b/c he has no path to victory. People called for Edwards to get out when he had no path to victory.
Now Hillary has no path to victory and people are calling on her to drop out. Men, Women, Black, White, Latino, etc. All of them.
*Yes, I consider winning the nomination by breaking the party still a loss*

[Seedhom]

This parsing of words and hypersensitivity to sentence structure is absurd and goes to show how silly this campaign has become. Before reading articles like this one, I understood Obama's statement for what is it : "I am not asking Clinton to drop out, this race can go on as long as she wants." or you can say it in a hundred different ways I suppose .. but we all got the meaning. He could have said "No comment," and still someone will interpret it as dismissive or condescending .. or whatever. The point is that in this campaign, we are no longer able to talk on substance anymore, we have sunk so low!!