Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) (Barbara Kinney, Flickr.com)
What's Wrong With Perseverance?
Clinton Ferociously Hangs On, Looking Ready for a Few More Rounds
By Anne Taylor Fleming
04/25/2008
| 12 Comments
We like always to think of it as a virtue, the head-down, tortoise-beats-the-hare tenaciousness that exemplifies the admirable victors, the artists, the lovers, and -- yes -- the powerful, who persist in their goals long after the fleet and fleeting have taken their seats. Which, of course, brings us to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Nobody in recent memory, certainly no woman, has pushed and fought and hung as tough as our would-be first woman president.
More to the point, she has ignored and continues to ignore calls for her to step aside, despite the formidable math that stands in her way. She is clearly not afflicted with the traditional female need to make nice. Not by a long shot.
She has been excoriated in print and on the Internet for taking the low road, been analyzed ad nauseam by the TV punditry, been abandoned by former Clinton allies. Yet, on she goes, strangely, even fiercely, alluring in her persistence.
Am I crazy, or does she actually look better, glowier, more vital than she did months past when the nomination seemed to be hers for the taking? She is a radiant warrior -- or warrioress, if you will -- bringing to bear on her White House hunt the same grit and tenacity she has so clearly brought to her marriage. Back when many people, a lot of them women, urged her to abandon her serial philanderer, she brushed off their injunctions with head held high. In fairness, a lot of women seem to exemplify tenaciousness in love, trying to hold marriages and families together despite a straying mate. The domestic sphere is our orbit to manifest persistence.
But seldom do we see a woman show such ferocity in the service of her own blazing, trail-blazing ambition. Seldom have we seen a woman subtly, or not-so, go for the masculine jugular as this one has -- slashing at her male opponent with a kind of baiting, patronizing, survivalist's glee. You want to go a few more rounds? Great. I'm in. This is just getting fun. She seems more and more lit up, he more and more defeated, defensive, even though, technically, he is still in the winner's column.
It's quite a spectacle. One that leaves many of us with two minds. Yes, great -- if you are in the battle, full steam ahead. Don't pull your punches, don't curtsy and leave the stage. Don't whine or cry, a la Pat Shroeder back when.
To the young women around me, I say, watch her. You may have problems with her; you may think this is ultimately disturbing stuff, but there is something instructive -- even quite moving -- in her example. If you're going to play with the big boys, at some point, this is what it might look like.
But there is the flip-side. Clinton is flirting with seriously weakening the presumptive nominee -- he does have more popular votes and more delegates. In her zeal to win, she is showing a dangerous willingness to take down her party, a willingness to ding and demean Barack Obama as an untested lightweight unwilling to go for her jugular in turn.
You get the feeling from Clinton that this is her perversely finest hour. A time when every slight, from kindergarten on, is being brought to bear in her obdurate willingness to stay the course -- suggesting now that the Florida and Michigan votes should count after the party flat out said they wouldn't, and after Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Rules be damned -- right?
But underneath it all is her dangerous willingness to let race finally finally infect the consciousness of this country. The votes, certainly in the industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, are showing a real racial divide. In the latter state, Clinton got 63 percent of the white vote -- inflaming the resentments of the hard-core industrial workers in those states to get it -- while Obama got 90 percent of the black vote. And 18 percent of Democratic voters said race mattered to them.
OK. The jig is up. We are face to face with our ourselves. Clinton has lasted long enough, and fought hard enough, for the race issue finally to be at the forefront, to grab the post-mortem headline in The New York Times.To the young women around me, I say, watch her...But there is a flip side...
Bill Clinton tried to do this in South Carolina -- put race squarely on the table -- and it backfired. The Clinton campaign, abetted by the prowling media hordes, tried to put it on the table again with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. story, only to have Obama try eloquently to take it off -- and seem to succeed in fair measure with his elegant speech.
But now it's back, really back. No thanks to Obama's so-called pal, Wright, himself. He told PBS' Bill Moyers that Obama was, after all, a politician -- and they had to say what they had to say. Sounds like wounded ego. Whatever, he didn't help.
The longer we go, the longer she hangs in, the more Hillary Clinton has been able to make the country wonder if, indeed, it is ready to elect a black president.
We hoped we were past that. We talked of Obama as the post-racial candidate. In their retro-shrewdness, the Clintons have called our bluff. They've taken us down the old, low road. She has done this at least in part by her obdurate willingness to keep on keeping on.
Obviously race would have come up in the general election in some form -- overtly, covertly, every which way. But it is front and center now: questions of Obama's electability and, under that or on top of it, his skin color. Even those who might applaud Clinton's tenacity and still be ardent supporters of her candidacy cannot help but feel some sickness and even some shame over the reckoning her ferocious persevering campaigning has helped bring about.
Anne Taylor Fleming is a novelist, commentator and essayist for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." She is the author of a memoir, "Motherhood Deferred: A Woman's Journey."
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© 2007 The Washington Independent
Comments:
Posted 04/25/2008 10:45pm with
I have never known politics and political campaigns to be neat and easy. This campaign has provided opportunities to flesh out policies and positions. It has offered the opportunity to hone skills in communication and thinking on your feet. It has shown that the candidates are not perfect and are clearly human, making mistakes and mis-statements. It has shown that voters will decide if this campaign continues to convention or not. The voters have been tenacious in bringing their concerns about their abilities to raise their families with any kind of dignity. Voters have shared their uncertainty about the future and what it holds for them. Voters have seen that what happened to blue collar and manufacturing jobs can happen to white collar jobs. This race is not neat and it doesn’t fit into soundbites and time tables. The best laid plans don’t always work in politics. I believe that the voters of this country will decide for themselves who best represents them and that the decision will be accepted by Democrats and those who vote for a Democrat candidate, because the alternative is four more years of Bush policies.
Posted 04/25/2008 10:45pm with
I have never known politics and political campaigns to be neat and easy. This campaign has provided opportunities to flesh out policies and positions. It has offered the opportunity to hone skills in communication and thinking on your feet. It has shown that the candidates are not perfect and are clearly human, making mistakes and mis-statements. It has shown that voters will decide if this campaign continues to convention or not. The voters have been tenacious in bringing their concerns about their abilities to raise their families with any kind of dignity. Voters have shared their uncertainty about the future and what it holds for them. Voters have seen that what happened to blue collar and manufacturing jobs can happen to white collar jobs. This race is not neat and it doesn’t fit into soundbites and time tables. The best laid plans don’t always work in politics. I believe that the voters of this country will decide for themselves who best represents them and that the decision will be accepted by Democrats and those who vote for a Democrat candidate, because the alternative is four more years of Bush policies.
Posted 04/25/2008 11:50pm with
Your observation points to one of the difficulties of the feminism of HRC’s generation. She has adopted many of the same destructive traits of the men who have too often served the cause of peace and justice poorly. We men need to adopt more of the values traditionally associated with the feminine if the world is to be a better place – not so much the other way around. HRC has had a noble career, but she has become too much of what she once fought against. The last straw for me was her reaction to the Rev. Wright situation. She decided to participate in the high tech lynching of a good and decent man with a great ministry. (I hope all of you watch the complete Moyers interview.) A man who was good enough to stand with her family during it’s greatest political (and personal?) crisis. It is one thing for the RNC hit machine to do this. It is quite another to do this to someone on the same team for one’s own gain. Yes, young women and men should look at HRC. This is what it looks like when you adopt the values of the system in the name of changing it. You end up voting for dumb wars that should never have been fought along with a whole litany of other disappointments.
Posted 04/26/2008 01:33am with
Now, if Dean, Pelosi, and Reid will just keep out of it. I have nothing but contempt for that creepy cabal.
Posted 04/26/2008 01:52am with
@pastorhorace
The Reverend Wright issue was initially brought up by Fox News and not Hillary Clinton or her organization. For the most part, she has been involved in it by responding to direct questions put to her. That it has continued, is as much a matter of Barack Obama’s obfuscation, misdirection, and equivocation during his long, drawn out explanation that progressed from denial of experiencing it to denial of the Reverend.
It is Obama that has some explaining to do here, and not Clinton.
I detect some latent misogynistic attitude in your text.
Posted 04/26/2008 07:05am with
The Clinton campaign is smart enough to do the math. They know the nomination is securely in Barack Obama’s hands. Even in a near perfect scenario of Hillary doing much better than expected in all of the remaining primaries and caucuses, she’d still need 76% of the uncommitted delegates to come out and support her. She’d nee to convince 76% of these politicians to overturn the will of the people. Since february 5th, she’s gained a net of 5 super deleagtes, while Obama has gained 70!!
Every day that the Clinton camp keeps their campaign alive and focused on bringing down the Eventual Democratic nominee is another day that John McCain gets a free pass. John McCain doesn’t need to raise money to attack his opponent. He has Hillary Clinton for that.
Posted 04/26/2008 10:23am with
To answer your question – No, you’re not crazy, but yes, she is certainly starting to look like she is…..I am a 54 yr old woman who was (IS) on the front-lines of women’s rights, for 40 yrs – I have a close friend of the same age, who says she is pro-Clinton because she wants to see “a woman President”.....an understandable sentiment…..but to which I can only respond “this is not 1973, let’s grow up” haven’t we all progressed beyond assuming that ANY woman for the job is an improvement over ANY man? Hillary has never represented ALL of my values (just to start, putting up with Bill’s crap in the name of political ambition is scarcely noble behavior) and I’m frankly embarrassed for the women who gleefully rationalize her selfishness and tunnel-vision…if anything, I believe she is setting back the progress of women in the political arena by leaps & bounds. We are so fortunate to have a candidate of Obama’s caliber – his intelligence, integrity, ethical standards, vision (as we were with Gore), we really can’t blow it again, can we? Geeeez, I hope not…....
Posted 04/26/2008 10:28am with
old91a10, Clinton has gotten in bed with the conservative media – Fox, Abc, Scaife(!)... – in her attempt to align herself with John McCain in attacking Obama. I would say with some certainty that the Clinton’s had some influence in the Rev. Wright loop; don’y be naive about their connections and their influence. The ABC debate/set-up is one example. And as the article so clearly says, she did betray the Rev. in supporting the conservative, unfair view of him. But betrayal and going with popular opinion is nothing new to the Clinton’s – it is what has gotten them where they are and helped all the scandals to roll off them like water off a duck’s back. I would admire her if she stepped down now and tried to work to bridge that racial divide that she has made wider with her attacks, which are meant to be emasculating and to marginalize Obama as a black candidate. If she wasn’t such a divisive candidate, she might have been a perfect VP. I often wonder why the media doesn’t more closely explore the reasons why these two candidates with nearly identical platforms will not work together. But I think we already know the reason – Hillary wants to be #1 and that she is not; if she eliminates Obama, she feels she will have a chance. But in the process, she is marginalizing herself because the African American community and many of the young and older voters who are strong Obama supporters would not look kindly upon her in the Fall. I myself, will not support such underhanded politics.
What we see here is not a victory for feminism, but rather a woman giving in to the patriarchal status quo and the conservative values that she claims she is against. Has anyone noticed that most of the people behind this woman are men, and some quite frightening and slimy ones at that? I need to stop here; I have some cookies to bake and artwork to catch up on (my career; what do you think about that, Sen. Clinton? not feminist enough?)
I pray that she grows a conscience and takes a good long look in the mirror. That’s not glowing in her face; it’s gloating, and I hope voters recognize for what it is, too.
Posted 04/26/2008 12:22pm with
@grainneg—unsupported, random, obamaniac drivel.
Depending on the ‘who and how’ of data analysis and extrapolation, it looks as if the split is close enough to 50/50 which warrants that the primary continue—there is not yet a presumptive candidate. And as it continues, he acquires the stink of the transparent Dean, Pelosi, and Reid cabal.
What’s your take on pastorhorace? Misogynist or not? He’s in your camp.
Here is a short list of complaints I have about Obama (I could double this):
advocated Social Security privatization;
association with Exelon—elect. util. & nuke waste;
association with Rezko—11 dilapidated properties in district;
association with Auchi—food for oil scams;
wife’s pay raise after his election;
supported the Bush and Cheney energy plan;
voted for Bush’s Class Action Fairness (deprives legal recourse against large corps.);
denial of taking money from oil companies (both candidates have oil execs as bundlers individual donors);
correction for Bush’s tax relief still favors upper incomes;
opposed Feingold’s censure of Bush over wiretaps;
rejected Murtha’s call for redeployment;
neglect of European Subcommittee (ergo, lost influence over NATO);
relationship with homophobes McClurken and Rev. Caldwell;
repeatedly voted for Patriot Act;
“present” and “oops, wrong button” on many votes in Illinois & U.S. Senates;
takes credit for ethics bill he had little to do with;
does not include adults in his health insurance program;
skipped out on Iran resolution vote;
spokesperson equivocated on NAFTA in Canada;
spokesperson equivocated on troop withdrawal in England;
invokes past Republican Administrations (riddled with excesses and criminal acts);
his handling of the Reverend Wright debacle.
Charisma is a thin veneer. It surely doesn’t hide Obama’s obfuscation, equivocation, misdirection regarding responses to some issues of his personal and political history.
For example, his Rezko connection still matters. Here, his denials usually referred to a narrow strip of land, returned campaign funds, or billable hours. Accepting those explanations, I can not ignore eleven dilapidated buildings designated as affordable housing in his district that received grants, loans and Federal tax credits. Many of these appear to be within five miles of the Obamas’ home. Imagine that. His constituency shivering in the cold because of evictions and unpaid heating bills.
Don’t believe me, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDHsHM0laT8&feature=relate…
Here’s a map of the locations—Obama’s residence is three blocks east of the north side of Washington Park:
http://media.suntimes.com/images/cds/gmapsobama/
Now, tell me if you should also be praying that Obama grows a conscience.
By the way, there is no possible way that McCain will receive my vote, and I hope your cookies were a big hit.
Posted 04/27/2008 01:03am with
old91a10, I don’t mean to be disrespectful (I would like to improve the tone here), but your Clinton talking points are just as random and unsupported (I won’t use the word drivel here; it’s not a nice word) as my observations, as written, were. I wrote and unfortunately lost a long response to your unsupported reasons for not liking Obama (sounds like a political excuse but is actually true). Yet I will not rewrite as it is very late, and I realize that if you have the capability of gleaning all those talking points from Hillary’s website and other sources, you also have the capability of deepening your view of Obama and the issues. I used to be Hillary supporter and I went through this process myself. Obama certainly is not perfect and has his faults, admittedly, but it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more objective and fair. Have you looked so deeply into Hillary’s scandals as well?
And no, I wouldn’t accuse pastorhorace of being a misogynist based on what he wrote here. It’s a strong word to throw around.
Posted 04/27/2008 02:08pm with
@grainneg
Sorry ctrl-s failed you on your long rebuttal. I find it safer to work in a text editor, then copy/paste into the comment block. Thus, I avoid the occasional time-outs, browser failures, and finger slips.
However, I would be very happy to assist you. Please feel free to select any number of my short list of complaints about Obama, and I will gladly provide you and others with links.
They’ll look something like this random sampling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDHsHM0laT8&feature=relate…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/obama…
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20080330_Obama_wa…
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_oil_spill.…
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/genera_evelyn_p_080404…
http://www.nysun.com/news/national/obama-adviser-calls-tr…
What’s your thinking on Obama being afraid to debate?
Posted 05/01/2008 01:36pm with
I’ll concede that Hillary can emerge the nominee. She can continue her assault on Obama, playing to the racist vote(that will turn sexist in the fall) and hardball 70% of the remaining SDs to go her way. She’ll be standing on the ashes of what once was the Democratic Party. If someone can explain to me how the fact that she has picked up only a handful of SDs since the race actually started isn’t a rejection of her as a candidate? It is clear the party wants no part of the Clinton entity. They were narcissistic poor party leaders in the nineties. She is not wanted, her dog-whistle racist politics are abhorrent. And we haven’t even got into the Limbaugh democrats propping up one of the worst campaign machines in modern history.