Lately I am asked by lots of friends, including my new colleagues at the HuffPost -- who I am so privileged to work with -- just what it is about Hillary that makes me stick with her now, knowing that her chances to gain the nomination are slim to nonexistent.
I admire Senator Obama and the campaign he has run and I know I will be an enthusiastic pundit for him after June 3rd if the Clinton campaign cannot change the equation by then. The personal answer for me is that I am loyal. And it is not a quality I have ever needed to apologize for before. But I want to focus on trying to translate for my friends, just what it is about this campaign of Hillary Clinton's that keeps the enthusiasm of her supporters, particularly the women supporters who are following the campaign around the country, going and going even as the potential for victory is so dim.
There are all of the political reasons that keep her campaign going like the popular vote, the polling in swing states, finishing out the primary states before the superdelegates make their judgments, etc. But that doesn't explain the passion.
It endures out of, not just the determination of Hillary Clinton to be heard, but of her supporters desire to send a message to this country. A message that I am still not sure has been heard. For all of its historic firsts, this primary race has surprisingly not, until recently, generated a discussion of gender in the same way that it has triggered an education on race.
I consider myself one of the most race conscious, race sensitive people I know. My own children are bi-racial (like Obama -- white birthmother, black birthfather). And yet I learned something so important about race and black consciousness during this campaign. I learned that it doesn't matter if Bill Clinton (for instance) is a racist or not. The intentions of a person speaking are less relevant in the moment than the impact of the words being spoken. So whatever has been said about African-Americans by white people in this campaign has been heard by many African-Americans as one more layer of seemingly innocent comments built upon a lifetime of insensitivity and slights.
Yet, for the past few weeks, when Hillary's supporters suggest that similar comments made about gender have the same hurtful impact, Obama supporters guffaw and most of the media ridicules the notion and ridicules the Senator herself as though she is suggesting that she is losing because of her gender -- which incidentally I have never heard her say.
I don't really buy into this notion of the campaign is faltering because Hillary is a victim of sexism. I may part company with some of the Hillary sisterhood on this point. There has been lots of sexism in this race, but this campaign is losing because of choices and strategies of it's own making. Articles and books will be written after the fact about the lost opportunities, the mixed messages, the insular in-fighting, the financial recklessness and the lack of focus on delegates. She has never caught up in the delegate hunt from those early mistakes.
But that does not mean that the zeitgeist of sexism and the numerous comments and visuals that women have seen during the course of this campaign have not had the same impact on the woman who have witnessed or heard it in the exact same way that African Americans have heard comments about race.
And until that is really acknowledged by enough people, perhaps including Barack Obama, these women will not be sated. And in the meantime, Senator Clinton doesn't give up.
So why does this campaign endure? The obvious first answer is the Senator herself. Her campaign has fired on all cylinders since March with a field operation that wins states and a message that stays consistent.
Hillary has found her voice and she is using it to speak to a group of people often ignored in politics. Women who have felt powerless to change or even complain about their own lives because they are just too damn busy keeping it together for everyone around them. And they certainly haven't had time for politics.
From the waitress in the diner to the school teacher to the executive on wall street, women feel the daily slights that are often invisible to others. Yes, many of her supporters need real and immediate help from the government, but so many more are just grateful to be noticed.
Sure there are lots of women in this country who don't feel this way. And for all of you who are going to write comments saying as much you don't have to. I am happy for you. Genuinely.
But Hillary's campaign is still going for every woman who has spoken up in a meeting and was greeted with silence only to have a man say the same thing and be praised. It endures for the mothers who are taking care of their children and their parents and their home and has no time to take care of herself. It endures for women who are so scared to see her fail because of what it may say about their chances in life. And yes folks, it resonates for all the women who have seen the younger guy come along and get the promotion even though she has worked in the company loyally for years.
Too many supporters of Senator Obama get mad at this. It isn't his fault they say. It isn't easy for a black man they say. Take a white woman of privilege and pit her against a black man who started with nothing in life and tell me who has the worse odds they say. But it isn't about Obama, I say. I am not pitting them against each other. In fact last month I wrote to debunk the theory that Obama has had a leg up on this campaign as a black man. The sexist and gender noise has largely been perpetrated by others, not by Obama or his campaign.
It really isn't his fault.....but in a few days it will likely be his responsibility. Until then, Senator Clinton and her supporters carry on.
Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hilaryr
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So keep on with your threats of acting like a bunch unreasonab
BTW:Clinto
The Obamaniacs are threatenin
Dean replied ( to Stephanopo
There has been an enormous amount of sexism in this campaign on the part of the media, including the mainstream media. We'll leave present company excepted, because I think that's true. But there have been major networks that have featured numerous outrageous comments that if the words were reversed and they were about race, the people would have been fired.
So that's a big issue. And there are a lot of women in this country who -- there's two issues here. One is one candidate is ahead and one is not. That happens all the time in primaries, and you get over that. What you don't get over is deep wounds that have been inflicted on somebody because they happen to be a woman running for president of the United States.
STEPHANOPO
DEAN: We don't know. But I do believe that the issue of sexism in this country has to be addressed.
Since you continue to demean Clinton (despite the fact that this was a salient issue in the campaign), see how it works for you going it alone in the fall.
As a woman and business owner in her fifties who has been through a lot, I don't feel Clinton speaks for me or reflects my experience as a woman in any effective way at all. I feel embarrassm
I don't know many women who support her. Those who do seem to cling with a kind of blind loyalty, and when we talk about the multitude of issues I bring up (assasinat
Not this woman, not this time.
See dear, no one made up the misogyny your inept con man's taken advantage of - and look in the mirror and see what you've chosen. Sad, self hating - to have missed what so many educated women and Howard Dean noted today on The Week - He said that Obama biggest challenge is mending the rift that the media has caused by their blatant sexism during this campaign. That had the remarks been racial slurs of the same tone, the people who said them would have been fired.
So for the male-ident
Qualities that are generally perceived as female traits: patience, empathy, good communicat
Since Obama has all the above mentioned traits, and if Bill Clinton was our first black President - - then why can't Obama be our first female president?
"cuz Bama gon win". And you have a blessed day!
Not tough enough or a ball breaker - how can you win?
Where we part ways is in her continued campaign. Senator Clinton is going beyond giving a voice to the "voiceless
You conclude by saying that this resentment will become Senator Obama's responsibi
"The time has come for Senator Clinton to heed this call and actively work to unite the party and not simply passing the buck to Senator Obama."
Indeed this will be her ultimate litmus test: can she move past the divisive "gotcha" politics of the campaign, and put her own political aspiration
Now we will see if she is constituti
In my book, Hillary Clinton's feminist credential
How do feminists square the choices Hillary Clinton has embraced of her own free will with the whole idea that she is a feminst?
Thanks for at least taking a shot at this. I have been searching for a rationale explanatio
Unfortunat
What we're saying is that Hillary Clintons's campaign has made deliberate use of racism, including the appeal to racists, for Hillary's political beneft. That's something we're well qualified and well able to declare given facts available on the public record.
"But it isn't about Obama, I say. I am not pitting them against each other."
Maybe you're not, but many others are. They are saying that they will vote for McCain (who opposes the proposed provision of reasonable enforcemen
No true feminist could possibly support McCain against Obama.
I hope you wil work as hard to convince Clinton's die-hard supporters that Obama deserves their support as you work to justify why Clinton deserves support.
I submit to you that loyalty is not intrinsica
Loyalty must be tempered with curiosity, open-minde
In my political lexicon, the word "loyal" is a distant cousin to the word "conservat
True courage comes from a willingnes
Many of those who profess loyalty to Hilary Clinton are, truthfully
As the former director of the HRC, you must recognize the importance of breaking with the past and shaping a better future for everyone. Judging by the very reasonable comments you've made here and on MSNBC, I'm sure you will come around.
But you would seem more courageous if you took a clean break from your "comfort zone" and argued your position solely on the candidate'
But I'm having a real problem with these charges of sexism against Hillary.
Here's why.
There are no concrete examples of this supposedly omnipresen
We have the racist statements of Bill Clinton, Geraldine Feraro and others associated with the Clinton campaign. They are a matter of public record. We can debate whether or not Hillary's remark that it took more than MLK to pass the Civil Rights Act is racist for example- it's a specific remark- it's quantifiab
When it comes to charges of sexism we are getting vagaries- feelings- emotional hunches- with nothing to back up the charges
Yeah, yeah Obama said "sweetie" a couple of times and he apologized (unlike the Clintons)- but a few "sweeties" do not make a case women.
If women (and pro-femini
I know sexism exists but so does bad campaignin
And I say that as a feminist.
What is ORGANIC about Hillary Clinton's support, Mrs. Rosen? As you said on CNN. Clinton is continuing to promote incindiary remarks. They are all Declarativ
Who cares if now she put a spotlight on Puerto Rico, as she said in her remarks. That wasn't her initial intent. At the beginning of this race, she should have cared less about Puerto Rico But she continues to lie. This isn't organic, this is MANIPULATI