I THINK CAP'N JOY'S second comment (circa 2:24PM) offers the most humane, and frankly, most plausible explanation of HRC's speech.
BUT THE FACT THAT OBAMA is the nominee--and all that that means--really only sunk in last night, as I was heading south in a taxi on the FDR expressway.
IT IS LUCKY I WAS NOT DRIVING, because at that moment, my whole brain swerved off the road in happy surprise.
BUT THERE IS A LOT OF FDR EXPRESSWAY LEFT to travel. Onward.
That is all.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
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9 comments:
Here's a piece in the WaPo, titled "She Could Accept Losing. She Could Not Accept Quitting." that I found informative.
i had that OMG moment too - never in my lifetime thought i'd see a woman and an african-american make it so far in the race. i had the same OMG moment when deval patrick became governor of mass - and it's interesting (and sad) that patrick faced similar attacks from kerry healey. makes me wonder what these women are thinking when they decide to run for the "high-end" positions in government and essentially turn into super-defensive attack machines. i worry that hrc may have done more harm than good when it comes to putting a woman in the white house in the future but hopefully by then we'll have a candidate who can run on her own TRUE accomplishments rather than on her opponents alleged (i.e., made-up) short-comings.
anyway, this is all pretty damn cool.
One can only hope that with this epiphany we can stop the Hillary bashing and return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Also, if anyone would like some insight into the feelings of many Clinton supporters at this time, I'd recommend reading this blog post
Will you be testing out the latest edition of D&D? Or have you thrown your last D20, now that you wear whalebone and silver suits?
i'm very uncomfortable with the whole "HRC's campaign was killed by sexism" meme.
(i feel the need to establish my feminist bona fides here: i am a feminist.)
and i have been disturbed by the misogynist critiques directed at her. i'm disgusted, for example, by the thousands of jerkwads that joined the "make me a sandwich" fb group.
but to suggest--as many have--that sexism was even a significant contributing factor in her loss is, i believe, a fallacy.
hillary lost the campaign for these reasons:
1) she had a message of experience in a change election.
2) her team had no post-feb. 5 plan
3) her team ignored the caucus states
4) she underestimated perhaps the most promising political candidate we've seen in decades.
5) obama's campaign out-organized, out-strategized, and out-fundraised her.
gender may have been a factor. but it pales in comparison to the five listed above. and suggesting otherwise diminishes the actual real world harm that sexism does. (much like HRC's absurd comparison of the FL/MI situation to Zimbabwe is an insult to the victims of that struggle).
so, to the shakesville blog: simmer down. no, people weren't suggesting HRC should leave the race b/c she's a woman. it's because there was no mathematical chance of her winning. and because many believed we were harming our chances against the RNC come fall by continuing the race.
i guess i'm particularly irritated by this meme because it's just the most recent iteration of an idea that's annoyed me throughout the primary season. i hate how closely HRC & her supporters have identified her campaign with the cause of women's advancement, implying that if you care about feminist issues, you'll support her. for example: there's no good reason NARAL should have been attacked for endorsing Obama (a staunch champion of women's rights). i think it's actually anti-feminist to suggest that one should support a candidate because of their gender alone. as a woman, a feminist, and a steadfast obama supporter, i'm offended by this rhetoric. yes, sexism is real, but women like sebelius, pelosi, mccaskill, napolitano, and boxer are proof that we don't need pity votes.
I hope she figures out how to disappear at some point.
To the curiously dull mint,
Deval Patrick's election wasn't surprising, however in hindsight, it has been disappointing because he is corrupt and not serving in the public interest. He has left most especially the black American community in Massachusetts, who placed such high hopes in him, disheartened.
What bothers me the most are those who feel the need to infer that the majority of white Americans, most especially white working class and rural Americans are racist. Those who espouse such belief are ignorant and disconnected from the realities. Of course those are the same people who also demand single issues take precedence over the true life and death issues of dealing with joblessness, outsourcing. Those same people are the ones who dismiss the fact that there isn't a worker shortage, and ignore the destruction of wage standards and workplace protections.
They care no more for the plight of working poor, middle class black Americans, than they do working poor and middle class white Americans.
To capnjoy,
The only misogynist rantings have been from some pundits, and from individuals who not only would never have voted for her, they were either McCain supporters or just rabid neo-cons.
What bothers me the most about HRC's fanatical few (and they are few) is the fact that they presume to dictate to the rest of us that the truth, HRC's record, and our legitmate concerns about the same don't matter. That the only thing that matters is the presumption of a woman attaining the white house.
I'm a woman, and was raised a feminist. I don't tend to use the word to describe myself any more, because of the rabid extremists who run the movement these days. Like HRC, they live above the glass ceiling, are dogmatic and are NOT working in aid of the rights of all women.
I have a mind, and I use it. I follow politics, the issues and congressional votes carefully. I research candidates and pardon me, but I ask hard questions.
I hope that Obama doesn't hire Patty Solis Doyle for his campaign. She has no respect for the issues, or our right to ask questions. It was her policy to order Clinton HQ's so anyone who called to ask about issues and the platform, be directed to the VA office. Of course emailing or telephoning the VA office was a waste of time, because Doyle's policy was, that no staffer answer questions, and most certainly didn't allow citizens to speak with people in charge of policy.
If one politely insisted that such a stance was highly unusual and voters had every right to expect to be able to ask questions and get answers, the only answer was "perhaps after the nomination".
As if it was in the bag.. I'd laugh, but it's not funny. Patty Solis Doyle is a lobbyist in waiting and we don't need her sort involved in this campaign. Not if we want to win.
It's a cop-out for anyone to try to whitewash the reasons for Hillary's loss. While many of us respected her during Bill's tenure in the presidency, once she was elected to the senate, and we saw what she did when she had power, it destroyed any and all respect, and certainly didn't engender any trust in her.
Hillary was a lousy candidate for the presidency, and she certainly would never have brought about any positive change.
The real, lifeblood issues are paramount to the majority of Americans, and Senator Clinton trampled on those issues, our rights and dignity. No one is entitled to elective office, one has to earn it. I am grateful in so many ways that she will not be the next president.
m - the point of deval patrick being corrupt is not relevant to the point i was trying to make (actually, i wasn't making a point i was just ruminating over the similarities of the campaigns). and i'm not sure if you were accusing me of inferring that most whites are racist since i didn't mention anything about race in my post.
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