A few of my thoughts on the South Carolina primary, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
It will come as no surprise for most here that I was and am outraged by the cowardice the Democratic leadership has shown since the Alito hearings. I drew a line in the sand then, I said I wouldn't vote for another Democrat, especially one who lived and ruled from the ivory towers, especially candidates that live and breathe the machine of the Democratic Party.
It will also not surprise people, when push comes to shove, that if I vote the only candidate I could even begin to imagine voting for is John Edwards. I still hope I will get to vote for him in the general election, I will vote for him on Super Tuesday.
My reason is simple, he speaks for those who have no voice, he speaks against the corporatization of this country, he speaks for single mothers who work two jobs at minimum wage and still have to choose whether to clothe or feed their children. He also comes from the heart, something that is so rare in today's politics that it is truly inspiring even though Edwards is rarely that when speaking.
My dream ticket is Edwards/Bradley, an absolute dream but one that will not be realized. In the unlikely event that that will ever happen there are somethings I'd like to say about the South Carolina primary, the campaigning that led to the primary and what will be taken away from the data, the voters who showed up today, and people like you and me.
This started as a conversation I was having this afternoon with a very dear friend, a woman who has inspired me often and well, a woman who, like me, has waited a life time to vote for a woman to be the president of the United States of America. She is still on the fence whether to vote for Hillary Clinton or not.
She has food for thought tonight after we spoke, a few of my thoughts shared with her and now with you.
I believe the biggest strategic error in this presidential campaign was made the minute the Clinton campaign decided to give Bill the microphone, he's never met a camera he doesn't like. The microphone became a megaphone because of the words he's chosen to use, when he began playing the race card many of us who had a modicum of respect for him, if not for any other reason than that he had been the President with a D after his name, we gave him the benefit of the doubt, too soon and too often, but not now, not anymore, many of us have seen the error of our ways, he has stripped us of any respect we gave him, he has taken himself from a man who stood tall to a man who doesn't stand tall enough for that respect, he earned it and he lost it, and us in the process.
Hillary, as the first woman to run for the presidency, and the candidate that has the Democratic machine behind her, she was the front runner with a huge lead, a commanding lead in percentage points over everyone else, she became 'inevitable.' As many of us, especially those of us who have worked in politics know, the early front runner hardly ever wins the election. As she saw her margin of 'inevitability' grow smaller and smaller, the other half of the Clinton team, the one who had largely been out of sight, joined the campaign and it became the Clinton Him and Her Show.
When Hillary was campaigning largely alone she was tough, she was aggressive, she was running like a man, so much so that she became known as the warmongering' candidate. She felt the need to let everyone know that she could protect us and the country against any attack, here or abroad, that she could stand toe to toe with any male leader in the world, that she feared nothing, even though she got Rovian in her 'vote for me or you will never be safe,', she was independent and strong, she was invincible.
Then Bill stepped in and now she's become the woman, in many women's eyes, who has to have her man protect her, she needs Bill by her side, she appears weak when she's running side by side with him, she's lost her singular woman appeal, she's lost the 'tough woman who can lead' mantra, she has and is becoming the woman behind the man, the big burly big dawg, even though she's the candidate.
Then came the race card of course, which Bill can't seem to get beyond, even today he's made racist comments, bringing Jesse Jackson's name up for running for the presidency twice in the 80s, it's as if he can't not play that card.
Winning at any cost, winning no matter what you have to do is politics granted, but it's blatant now, it's not missed by most of the voters, code words are easily translated by almost everyone and seen for what they are, beyond unseemly, damaging to their campaign, and, dammit, damaging as setting precedent for women running for the presidency in the future.
Does a woman have to run like a man or if she doesn't is she seen as Hillary hiding behind a man's cover, does she become a woman who needs a man's protection.Which obviously pisses me the fuck off.
Hillary had a moment when she 'got it' after tearing up, that this is her campaign, she's the candidate, it became personal for her, well that lasted for about a minute, now Bill is there, the hubby protecting the little woman, it's fuckingass infuriating.
Made doubly so because Bill is making it about race, Bill and her senior staffers have no shame, they are and will play the race card and then kinda say, oops, we didn't mean to, well they do mean to and they do. The question is, do they think we're too stupid to know, do they really think we're ignorant or have they forgotten that their base is made up of liberals who happen to believe that civil rights are human rights and they should never ever have the appearance or the intent of winning at the cost of anyone and everyone because we don't believe it is 'us' and 'them,' there is only us.
As for the SC primary, Obama winning so substantially leaves little doubt that he is a serious contender, that he can win the nomination. It almost certainly means that the Clinton strategy is not going to change, but the downfall will be that they have misjudged the voters, especially the black voters, there has been amazing support for the Clintons from blacks but the more they play the race card the more black voters they will lose.
And the more people like me will step up and be in Obama's camp, not just because it's Hillary or Obama, but because they have disgraced another candidate and they have used us to do so. They also don't seem capable of understanding that for many Democratic voters, especially liberal/progressives, racism is a huge issue for us, and as such when you hit that nerve you turn us into not 'voting for Obama because that's our only choice' but to 'voting for Obama because he's the better person to be the president of our country.'
It will also turn me into a voter who will do more than just plug my nose and vote for Obama, it will give me the spirit to vote for him and to hope that he gets the nomination in a way that few things could if the race card hadn't been played against him.
The other thing that Obama has done, and something I've chosen to overlook until now, is that he vigorously went for the youth vote. For the first time in this campaign, I'm remembering what it was like to be that age, to be really excited about someone who I felt spoke for me as a young person, who cared if I voted or not, who gave me something to hope for, to be inspired by, something that fed my idealism.
As a woman, I can't speak for other women here because Hillary won the white women's votes in SC, but for me as a woman and a liberal, there are few things that make me angrier than blatant and callous racism, it goes beyond the gender of the person running, it goes to our values, who we are at the core of us, what makes us the person we are.
I've been sorely disappointed by another woman in a seat of power, Nancy Pelosi has disgraced women in this country, when a woman finally has the chance to break through the glass ceiling, or the gold ceiling as it is now called, to do the damage Pelosi has done as the first woman Speaker of the House is incalculable, she is weak, she doesn't have the strength to bring her caucus together, she has lost any power she stepped into as Speaker and she did so in one of her first days as Speaker, when she said impeachment is off the table. It hurts her even more when she says of us. "they're advocates, we're leaders."
There are few women pointing at her now as an example to their daughters of how far they can go because of the women who came before them, not when Nancy Pelosi is the example, as we talk of the glass ceiling, Pelosi has broken it in ways we never intended.
My fear is if Hillary is elected and takes residence, once again, in the White House, she will become like the candidate she is now, she won't rein Bill in, she won't tell him to Shut The Fuck Up, they will be so intertwined that we won't know if it's Hillary's policy or Bills and because there has never before been a First Gentleman, he has an open field to call his own, without a leash or a muzzle.
It's a dangerous precedent these two are setting, together and singularly for Hillary, as the first woman president she seems to be a woman who needs the protection of her husband because there are bad guys out there, people that call her names, a woman that needs to be rescued.
Snow White is precisely who women don't want to sit in the Oval Office behind the desk of the most powerful woman in the world, we were thinking the first woman president would be more like one of the suffragists who were thrown into prison, beaten and force fed, and when released went right back to the streets and dared them to do it again,protected by no man, and being relentless with President Wilson who finally relented and begrudgingly supported a woman's right to vote speaking before the Senate.
In late June 1917, six women were arrested. Eleven more were detained on July 4. Ten days later, a third group was taken into custody. All the women were charged with "obstructing traffic." The protesters were sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse. There, they suffered beatings, forced feeding, and unsanitary conditions. But the pickets - and the arrests - continued. In August, scuffles broke out right in front of the White House gates. For three days suffragists were dragged, punched and choked by angry crowds. City police stood by, refusing to intervene.
That's who this woman was hoping would fill the office of the President of the United States of America the first time because those women exists, then as now, we do exist.