As Clinton’s Hopes Dim, Gender Issue Lives On
By JODI KANTORWith each passing day, it seems a little less likely that the next president of the United States will wear a skirt — or a cheerful, no-nonsense pantsuit.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now in what most agree are the waning days of her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. To use her own phrase, she has been running “to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in American life, and now the presidency, or even a nomination that once seemed to be hers to claim, seems out of reach.
Along with the usual post-mortems about strategy, message and money, Mrs. Clinton’s all-but-certain defeat brings with it a reckoning about what her run represents for women: a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few pursue high political office in the first place.
Hillary lost votes because she's a woman, but she didn't lose the nomination because she's a woman.
How many white women have seiously attempted to run for President? One. And she came in as the presumptive favorite. As Doris Kearns Goodwin said, “When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to her.”
Hillary's loss was due to strategic and tactical problems, most particularly her reflexive campaigning as a Southern politician. Her free use of racial inuendo wouldn't have even been noticed in a Confederate state-wide campaign. In a national campaign it got noticed. It's always noticed. It's just so alien to a progressive campaign that she suffered for it.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
So the southern strategy
So the southern strategy failed in the Democratic primary. What will this hold for the future of Democratic and national politics?
"a historic if incomplete
"a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few pursue high political office in the first place."
The really smart women will ignore this so-called lesson and vow not to repeat all of Sr. Hillary's errors. A woman will win the Democratic Party's nomination and be elected president but not if she emulates Sr. Hillary.
it was never a matter of it being a woman
Just THIS WOMAN.
I would have no problem with a woman who was a TRUE FEMINIST
Not this fake who, who never achieved anything without it being attached to her husband.
Just like it wasn't about a Black person.....it was about THIS Black person.
People know who they like and don't like.
Just wanted to second...
Just wanted to second what Rikyah said. At the caucus where I had my 30 seconds of fame stumping for Sen. Obama, I made this point: "I really do want a woman as president who will govern as a feminist." The entire framing of HRC's campaign was based on the proposition that she was a "fighter," more "manly" than most men, a bigger militarist than Masunobu Tsuji,* and a Democratic rejoinder to Sen. McCain.
Sen. Clinton also pushed the fiction that Sen. McCain was a tough opponent by virtue of his hawkishness and foreign policy bona fides. If there's one thing that is hurting the political endeavors of women in the USA, it's this cult of militarism.
___________________________________________
* Masunobu Tsuji: the chief ideologue of the Control Faction that ruled Japan from 1936 to 1945. Class A War Criminal who later held a seat in the Diet as a hyperconservative.
I loved this bit from
I loved this bit from Coates:
http://www.ta-nehisi.com/2008/05/the-end-of-gera.html
So the southern strategy
Democrats won't try that again for a while. Nationally, it's going to cause the creation of new code words, like "full-blooded American."
Hey. I just noticed. You took down
Anyone But Clinton.
That's because it's over. I
That's because it's over.
I was trying to cut them a break, but you know...the Clinton crew will not stop.