Why Should the 'Girl' Step Aside?

The women we love in popular culture are the good girls.

Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Girls who don't rock the boat. Pretty, demure and corseted. These are the models we let our little girls believe are the ideal.

And that's Hillary Clinton's problem. She's not the "good girl" in that fairy tale princess sort of way. That makes a lot of us a little uncomfortable.

Hillary is more Princess Smartypants than Princess Aurora.

More Mulan than Madeleine.

For some reason, we can't get past our lingering, underlying obsession with the idea that girls are for rescuing, not ones to be cast in the role of smart problem solver.

In addition to not voting for her or supporting her candidacy, many have started to call for Hillary Clinton to gracefully bow out of the presidential race for the sake of Democratic party unity. I'm the last one who wants to see a nasty fight between her and Barack Obama, and I really do want the Democrats to get focused on how to beat John McCain.

But why is Hillary the one people are calling on to step aside? Yes, she is behind in the delegate count, but not by that much. It's not like she's the Democratic version of Ron Paul.

The current delegate tally looks like this:

Obama -- 1515, Hillary -- 1424.

That's only a spread of 91 delegates. One of them needs 2025 to get the nomination and there are still plenty of delegates out there to put either one over the top.

If the political shoe was on the other foot, no one would be calling on Obama to step out of the race for the benefit of the woman who was ahead and possibly more qualified. Have you ever seen something like that happen in any workplace setting?

"Say, Joe, I know you're considering me to be the next CEO of ABC Corp., but you know, we've never had a woman running our corporation and Jane is just as qualified as I am and more people on the Board of Directors think she should have the job, so I say she should take that CEO slot! You know, I think it would be in the shareholders' interest for me to step aside so Jane can just get on with the work of leading us to bigger profits. "

Yeah, in my dreams.

No one has a crystal ball. Sure, some things might be more likely to happen than others in this crazy political atmosphere, but, in all honesty, can we really expect someone who is a viable contender for the White House to willingly and gracefully step aside if there is still a realistic chance of victory? No one called on Mike Huckabee to step aside in the GOP race, and he wasn't anywhere close to catching McCain.

You can also bet that if the pundits started calling for Obama to withdraw, no one would ask him to do it "gracefully."

Comments

[timm0]

Comparisons to the repug primary are bogus. They have a "winner-take-all" configuration for their delegates which zeros in on a winner very fast.

She shouldn't get out of the race because she has a vagina. She should get out of the race because she had 20 point leads in both states 3 weeks ago and was behind in some polls a few days before election day. She should have buried him, but she barely made it out of Texas alive.

Plus, these "big" victories in TX and OH are highly attributable (as per the exit polls published last night) to her desperate, rove-like campaign messaging, filled with lies and distortions and fear-mongering. If Obama's campaign is totally inept, and they surely have shown no signs of that, then this scorched earth approach might close the delegate gap to a very small number (http://www.newsweek.com/id/96440). But that is highly unlikely.

Obama's team will not waste too much time calling her on the carpet on the lies spread in OH and TX. She will have no choice but to make up more lies and nail down the all-important "we're afraid of the scary black Muslim guy" voting block to keep up. It'll be destructive and in the end, she will have nothing left of her dignity. If she wants power and to move "up" from the Senate, she'd do much better shooting for a Cabinet post or Supreme Court slot before her antics turn her into road kill.

If she stops the nonsense now, she'll still have enough prestige to avoid being a pariah in the party. If she continues on, she's doubling down on every hand. And if I had to bet, I'd say she'll put it all on the line because all she cares about is being President. Nothing else matters to her. We have to help her "make history," right? Well, history will be made one way or the other.

[Mollye]

She did not lie, she did not distort, she should not bow out..and who are you to suggest otherwise. There are still millions of people yet to vote in this primary. Obama has gotten a free ride from the media. We don't know anything about this man, who talks like a Gospel Preacher, and we need to know everything about him. NO MORE FREE RIDES FOR OBAMA.

[timm0]

I understand. I really do understand. HRC hasn't done anything (that is quantity 0 - zero, as in "null," "never," "nothing") wrong in any way. Strategy was right, her accusations were right, her tone was right, ALL her facts were right, all her votes were right, her positions were right, her advocating for the R nominee was shrewd and tasteful, etc. And when asked questions, she ALWAYS had clear, accurate, non-evasive answers. She is always providing information about herself when asked for it. And after all that, she is the ONLY candidate who gets negative press, hounding her night and day. There isn't a single person on the face of the earth who has written a good word about her. It's because she's perfect and they're not and they resent her perfection childishly.

There ya go - how's that?? Make you feel a little better? And none of that sounds stupid at all, does it?

[BeerNotWar]

Hillary is the Democratic Party's past, Obama is the future. If you have to pick between them wouldn't you have the future of the party start today and encourage an entire new generation of voters to get excited about politics?
That and, oh yeah, HILLARY IS LOSING.

[Jocalo]

It's NOT because she's a "girl" and it's insulting to say it. I'm an over 40 white woman and Hillary Clinton never had my vote. It's not because of her gender, it's because of her astoundingly bad judgment in almost every area of policy. Here are just a few examples, her cozy relationship with lobbyists, her claim of her husband's job as "experience," and her vote on the war. Her recent vote to declare the Iranian Guard a terrorist organization, shows me that she didn't learn from the vote that allowed the use of force in Iraq, which she continues to call call a "sincere" vote. People are still dying every day because of that vote and I think "sincere" is the wrong word, unless by sincere you mean: 'I sincerely made a horrible mistake, and I am sincerely sorry to all of the people who have lost loved ones.'
If the shoe were on the other foot , Obama was as mathematically behind as she is, and had lost 11 in a row, he would have been pushed out weeks ago. She didn't even have a strategy past Super Tuesday because she figured it would be sewed up by then. She was the anointed one.
Please, please, stop with this idea that anyone that doesn't want Clinton as the nominee just hates women. It's just not true and it does not serve women and our struggle to be judged on our merits.

[PhoenixtheUndying]

Hilary's problem is that she's a politician and has a career to defend. Case in point, her vote to authorize the war. It was a political vote meant to keep her in office as New York's senator. She said her vote was cast in consideration of the best information available but in January of that year, the Administration said Iraq couldn't project force against its neighbors, the CIA Factbook describes Iraq's army as antiquated, three weeks before the war, Hans Blix reported that Iraq was cooperating fully with weapons inspections, even allowing access to the presidential palace, and the last time we invaded Iraq, Richard Clarke found blueprints for a nuclear weapon. So what Hillary seems to believe here is that somehow under twelve years of devastating sanctrions, Saddam built nuclear weapons that could reach America in 45 minutes, and we'd only just discovered them. By the way she voted for a resolution on Iran that sounds errily familiar to this one.

Another carrer decision: foreign policy. She won't meet with our enemies until they earn it by changing their ways. That hard "we don't negotiate with terrorists" line is popular. But if they're already changing, what the heck are we negotiating? Our enemies won't change until we talk them into it. Plus, don't we look arrogant enough to the rest of the world? It's time to say we're not above you, we just have a better way forward.

Helthcare: Now we can afford a simple single payer system if we were to raise taxes 1 percent on Americans with 10 billion dollars or more. Like schools and libraries, health could be completely free, but since that's "socialized medicine" and unpopular with many, Hillary will have people mandated to buy health insurance at subsidized prices instead. There's a long list of these practical decisions that are far better than life under Bush, but no substitute for a real change in the way things are done. And that's why the girl should step aside: to allow room for the guy who speaks up against unpopular wars, once supported a single payer system even if he denies it now, tells us the truth about his past even if it's damaging, and is willing to meet with our foes right away to work for a better world.

In November, how ill Hillary criticize McCain for continuing a war she voted for? How will she attack the trade agreements her husband signed us on to and she has given at least some praise? And how will she fight the healthcare industry who has given her money? Besides all that she's had trouble with money and organization in a primary against a guy no one's really heard of. How then will she fight the Republican machine which has decades worth of scandals they can't wait to use?

We need new blood. A new message, a new politics, a new face with fewer scandals, better speeches, more money, better organization, a history of bipartisan support, and much less baggage.

[davidly]

1) I accept the deep-in-our-psyche uncomfortable-with-a-strong-woman argument. Don't forget about the American subconscious, though; OJing the opposition's photograph: "Black is evil and scary" is pretty well represented in anima and animus, especially in places like rural Ohio. Don't think for a minute that "Princess Smartypants" wasn't privy to that gem of poll data.

2) There are not enough delegates to put one of them over the top unless one of them drops out now, or one of them gets well over 90 per cent of the vote in 100 per cent of the remaining districts. Of course, everybody that's posted on this site knows that already, but your talking fairy tales and all...

3) Had the situation been reversed prior to so-called Super Tuesday, the calls for Senator Obama to withdrawal would have been deafening. The imaginary scenario you put forth is a straw-woman argument.

4) "No one" cared about Huckabee (relatively speaking) precisely because he wasn't close to catching McCain. The Democratic Party is afraid that they're gonna lose all the excitement they've thus far generated, which is a big reason why the situation isn't reversed in the first place- much to Sleeping Beauty's lament. (Funny, I find Sen. Clinton's behavior of late to be more like that of the pissed-off at her mirror queen, because she's not the "fairest" of them all.)

Personally, I wish they'd both step aside, and so gracefully that we could forget about the last year, and finally get on with exorcising the demons of the last several hundred.

Take back America!

Pocahontas '08

[elbowguts]

Why is that the one's who most loudly cry "sexism" are the first to blame everything on gender rather than debate the actual issues at play?

As long as you're spouting delegate statistics, why don't you tell us how many net delegates Hillary Clinton gained from yesterday's "big" primary wins? After the Texas caucus results are in, it'll probably turn out that she edged up less than 10 delegates, and could be as low as 4.

[vahawk]

If Obama lost 11 in a row and he was 150 delegates behind, damn right everyone would have been telling him to step aside for the good of the party. No other candidate would have got the 11 state loss and still given legitimacy. No, its not about being a girl. Stop the victimization.

So if Obama has the pledged delegate and the popular vote lead going into the convention, and Clinton gets the nod, are you going to ask:

Why should the African-American step aside?

I bet you (or any of the Clinton supporters) will.

[bish66]

None of the two candidates will be able to secure the necessary 2000-odd pledged delegates. So, who should be the candidate? I feel that the person who has the best chances to win should be the candidate. If I look at the states both have won, the easy answer is Hillary, because she won the important states. Most states are quite fixed in the two political camps. Obama may have won in Alaska, Idaho or Kansas, but these states will stay in the republican column. Same will be true for most southern states, especially if McCain picks a running mate from the south.

Obama failed to win the important states. Massachusetts? He had both senators on his side, but failed to win. Ohio and Texas? He outspent Clinton 3-1 and was not able to win. He challenged her to win both states and she did! She was broke and managed to jumpstart her own internet and small donations approach on the spot.

We can long speculate how the press would have reacted, if Obama had lost 11 primaries in a row. We will never know.

Right now, both are in a dead heat, but she has the momentum, because she was able to pull a last-minute-win out of her hat, she was able to overcome huge obsticals and she showed herself to be a fighter, making history. Obama's camp predicted that she would "fail", but she succeeded. She may fight tough and dirty, but so does Obama.

So, if she is able to carry that momentum into the next primaries in Wyoming, Mississippi and Pennsylvania, she will emerge as the candidate, if she does well in Pennsylvania. I have the feeling that before the week is over, some high profile endorsements will come in for her.

And about the automated delegates: they are free to vote for whoever they want. They are not bound to the results in their state or district. If they were then they would be utterly useless. They are the "experts", they know enough about politics to pick the right candidate. And in the past they overturned Gerry Hart, so voting for a candidate who is behind would not be something new. happened before, might happen again.

[PragmaticProgressive]

I'm not sure that gender has anything to do with it. If you look at pledged delegates, it is (almost) impossible for Clinton to catch up.

For her to catch up, she would need for either 1) Florida & Michigan to be seated. Seems silly given that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Or 2) for superdelegates to overturn the will of the people by reversing the candidate who does have the most pledged delegates. Make no mistake, this would require an incredible act of political will and might make the nomination not worth having.

The momentum argument begs the question of why even to have a comparison of total number of delegates. Why not just give the nomination to whoever wins the highest proportion of the last 10 contests?

Also, try looking at it from the other direction. If Clinton had racked up 12 straight wins in February and amassed an insurmountable amount of pledged delegates, don't you think some folks would be urging Obama to get out of the race?

[desmirl]

Hilary is a CHICKENHAWK WARMONGER. Might as wll vote for Senator McBomb-Bomb as Hilary. No difference.

[Pyrum]

Do you think Obama is somehow significantly different from McCain or Clinton, and if so, why? I don't see any real difference, myself.