The Day Hillary Lost
The question of why Hillary Clinton lost in Iowa can be answered by asking when did Hillary lose.
The date: November 1st, 2007. The place: Wellesley College, Massachusetts.
It was not the substance of her remarks. Clinton gave a ho-hum speach to her adoring sisters that women have always had to fight discrimination in career advancement.
It was the fact that Clinton decided to take a premature victory lap on this all-woman's campus. For the first time, I saw that that her authentic soul is one of confrontational radicalism. This surely is surely at odds with the unifying and transcending message that Obama proclaims.
It may well be true her her undergraduate years at this prepared her to "compete in the all boys' club of presidential politics." But Clinton's campaign strategy of assuming that the Democrats will crown her before competing against the Republican nominee has made her to triangulate public policies that most Republicans and Democrats reject. Republicans distrust her war policy and Democrats despise her votes in support of the president's war policy.
Hillary Clinton's drive for power today echos the rhetoric of Hillary Rodham, who addressed Wellesley College in her commencement address in 1969.
"We're not interested in social reconstruction; it's human reconstruction," Hillary said then. "Words have a funny way of trapping our minds on the way to our tongues but there are necessary means even in this multi-media age for attempting to come to grasps with some of the inarticulate maybe even inarticulable things that we're feeling. We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us even understands and attempting to create within that uncertainty. We're searching for more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living. And so our questions, our questions about our institutions, about our colleges, about our churches, about our government continue."
The questions surely continue. But what are Hillary's answers? Issues come and go, but during her undergraduate years, Hillary defined the principles that would animate her politics a generation later. To fulfull her Bachelor of Arts degree, Hillary's thesis was “There is Only the Fight.” It praises the work of radical activist Saul Alinsky, a radical who epitomized the politics of personal destruction that she has condemned. The spirit of the times may have shifted so that divisive politics canniot work. Neverthless, I predict Hillary will use these tactics to try to prevail against Obama and others-- mass mobilization, framing the issues and labeling adversaries, working through proxies, and publishing opposition research.
Unlike Obama, who resists defining himself as Jessie Jackson did in terms of race, Clinton continue to define herself in terms of gender. I see that from this blog entry from Ona Keller, a president of the Wellesley College Democrats.
http://bodypolitik.org/2007/11/02/clintons-wellesley-event-full-of-you-go-girl-flavor-but-imports-boys-and-sidelines-girls/
"Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton’s campaign manager, described Clinton as "one strong woman" and observed that “on that stage in Philadelphia, we saw six against one” as Clinton’s “opponents tried a whole host of attacks on Hillary.”
"Clinton’s great pride in Wellesley women was not reflected in the students who stood on the stage behind her. Male students from surrounding schools were imported, while Wellesley students active in the Clinton campaign and the College Democrats were denied seats on stage.
"If Clinton believes that Wellesley prepared her for the tough battles against sexism, why were Y chromosomes featured so prominently behind her at Thursday’s event?"
Let's reflect on these silly and sexist words and consider how emblematic it is of Hillary's desire to be president. That people are merely chromosomes and that Jack, Bill, and Mike are a bunch of Y chromosomes strikes me as a level of reductionism that is dehumanizing to the extreme. Futhermore, that the tough battles against sexism can only be fought by people with a certain kind of anatomy is ignorant and false. It is this kind of divisiveness that is indicative of Hillary Clinton and her campaign to be our next president. And it is why she will not be our next president.
The date: November 1st, 2007. The place: Wellesley College, Massachusetts.
It was not the substance of her remarks. Clinton gave a ho-hum speach to her adoring sisters that women have always had to fight discrimination in career advancement.
It was the fact that Clinton decided to take a premature victory lap on this all-woman's campus. For the first time, I saw that that her authentic soul is one of confrontational radicalism. This surely is surely at odds with the unifying and transcending message that Obama proclaims.
It may well be true her her undergraduate years at this prepared her to "compete in the all boys' club of presidential politics." But Clinton's campaign strategy of assuming that the Democrats will crown her before competing against the Republican nominee has made her to triangulate public policies that most Republicans and Democrats reject. Republicans distrust her war policy and Democrats despise her votes in support of the president's war policy.
Hillary Clinton's drive for power today echos the rhetoric of Hillary Rodham, who addressed Wellesley College in her commencement address in 1969.
"We're not interested in social reconstruction; it's human reconstruction," Hillary said then. "Words have a funny way of trapping our minds on the way to our tongues but there are necessary means even in this multi-media age for attempting to come to grasps with some of the inarticulate maybe even inarticulable things that we're feeling. We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us even understands and attempting to create within that uncertainty. We're searching for more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living. And so our questions, our questions about our institutions, about our colleges, about our churches, about our government continue."
The questions surely continue. But what are Hillary's answers? Issues come and go, but during her undergraduate years, Hillary defined the principles that would animate her politics a generation later. To fulfull her Bachelor of Arts degree, Hillary's thesis was “There is Only the Fight.” It praises the work of radical activist Saul Alinsky, a radical who epitomized the politics of personal destruction that she has condemned. The spirit of the times may have shifted so that divisive politics canniot work. Neverthless, I predict Hillary will use these tactics to try to prevail against Obama and others-- mass mobilization, framing the issues and labeling adversaries, working through proxies, and publishing opposition research.
Unlike Obama, who resists defining himself as Jessie Jackson did in terms of race, Clinton continue to define herself in terms of gender. I see that from this blog entry from Ona Keller, a president of the Wellesley College Democrats.
http://bodypolitik.org/2007/11/02/clintons-wellesley-event-full-of-you-go-girl-flavor-but-imports-boys-and-sidelines-girls/
"Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton’s campaign manager, described Clinton as "one strong woman" and observed that “on that stage in Philadelphia, we saw six against one” as Clinton’s “opponents tried a whole host of attacks on Hillary.”
"Clinton’s great pride in Wellesley women was not reflected in the students who stood on the stage behind her. Male students from surrounding schools were imported, while Wellesley students active in the Clinton campaign and the College Democrats were denied seats on stage.
"If Clinton believes that Wellesley prepared her for the tough battles against sexism, why were Y chromosomes featured so prominently behind her at Thursday’s event?"
Ona Keller
XX Chromosome
Let's reflect on these silly and sexist words and consider how emblematic it is of Hillary's desire to be president. That people are merely chromosomes and that Jack, Bill, and Mike are a bunch of Y chromosomes strikes me as a level of reductionism that is dehumanizing to the extreme. Futhermore, that the tough battles against sexism can only be fought by people with a certain kind of anatomy is ignorant and false. It is this kind of divisiveness that is indicative of Hillary Clinton and her campaign to be our next president. And it is why she will not be our next president.
Labels: 2008 Election
posted by My Mall and News at
11:06 AM
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