I think Dana's making a rather large mistake here:
[I]s it any huge surprise that some lifelong feminists happen to be sympathetic to the candidate who is a lifelong feminist? Is that really "unfortunate," as Brian Beutler writes? Are my issues as a feminist voter less important than any other voter's issues?
I agree that it's important to substantively lay out exactly why Clinton is qualified. I don't think she's the leading feminist candidate because she's a woman. I think she's the leading feminist candidate because she has always worked her ass off on feminist issues. Hillary is:A leader on ensuring pay-equity. 75 cents on the dollar for the same work. Still.
A voice for women veterans at a time when sexual assault in the military is climbing.
An advocate for 9/11 emergency workers suffering from not-so-mysterious health problems.
The woman who fought for universal health care 14 years ago. A creator of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The winner of a year-long post law school fellowship to study children in our health care system.
Completely unforgiving in forcing the FDA's hand to make Plan B available over the counter. Thank god. I mean, I've used this drug. This affects my life.
An experienced diplomat who visited 86 nations during her husband's presidential term, and who declared in China, "Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even in the late twentieth century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees. When women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse."
A founder of the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women.
A long-time student of progressive social change, writing about Saul Alinksky when Barack Obama was still in elementary school.
An editor of the Yale Review of Law and Social Policy.
A person who shunned highly-paid corporate law internships to work with the Children's Defense Fund and then Sen. Walter Modale's subcommittee on migrant workers.
This woman has done so much that I literally could spend all day writing this post. But I hope this is enough for now to feel like I can stop defending the point that yes, I'm a committed liberal and yes, I am seriously considering voting for Hillary Clinton.
Ok, first of all we're talking about two different things here. What I said in my post yesterday was, basically, it's unfortunate that "for a lot of Democratic women voters, Hillary's gender is an extremely important issue. Enough in many cases to tip them into her corner." Which is very, very different than suggesting that it's a bad thing if Hillary's history and positions in gender politics drive feminists into Hillary Clinton's camp. There's a major distinction between those two points. I only made the first one.
On the second one. Well, though typically not a single-issue guy, I'm always an issues guy and I see no problem in general with anybody rallying to the candidate who best fits them on the issue that's most important to them. But two things. First, when we're talking about this issue in particular--women's issues--it's important to note that just about all the other candidates are--for lack of a better word--"good" on women's issues. It's not surprising to me for a second that a bunch of Democratic candidates would say a bunch of progressive things about reproductive rights, especially at a planned parenthood event. These are their supporters. This is also what they believe. My take away from the previous days' reporting is that, in a lot of ways, the Edwards camp is actually touting the most progressive line on women's issues, but also has less experience with them than Hillary Clinton does.
So to me, the question almost automatically becomes "how do the candidates stack up on the issues on which they differ significantly?" If I'm a Democratic voter whose main issue is reproductive rights (or, say, raising taxes on the wealthy) then in this primary I see a bunch of candidates telling me pretty much exactly what I want to hear. And so maybe I move on to health care, or climate change, or foreign policy and find that, surprisingly, there are really huge differences between the candidates on these issues. These are the issues that, it turns out, drive me as a voter away from Hillary Clinton.
I accept the premise that women's leadership is, for the cause of gender equality, important for its own sake. But only if that leadership is likely to be incredibly strong, and founded on broadly good ideas. I just don't see a case for Hillary as the candidate of broadly good ideas. I'm eager to hear one out, but I also think that anybody who's been driven into Hillary's camp because of her actual gender should say so.
This is, you'll all remember, about general electability... for the job of President of the United States.
Update: In comments, Dana writes, "I'd also add that Hillary faces a very tough crowd, as the first serious female presidential candidate, when it comes to national security. People do see her as tough, and they need to continue seeing her that way. At a forum in Iowa several months ago, an older man asked her how he could be confident she'd be able, as a woman, to stand up to "bad guys." So I'm admittedly cutting her some slack on not being an outspoken antiwar voice."
Woman or not woman--Hillary Clinton or Tom Vilsack--I'm simply not willing to cut that slack.
I guess people need the freedom to decide if one or two issues are key for them, or if they broadly look at a range of issues. Both can be 'liberal' in my book, but I join you in feeling that there are so many issues (and multiple 'hot issues') that I admire the full-spectrum evaluation - and the full-spectrum liberal candidate.
On the problems of a female being 'strong' on national security, that is a very fine line to walk, jagged as it is. I'd be much happier with Hillary on this issue if she referred to Margaret Thatcher or Golda Mier as models of tough female heads of government rather than the hard line she's taken on the rightness of the Iraq war (in principle), the badness of Iran, or the purity of the Israeli cause v. the Palestinians and Israel's neighbors. But given the political environment (AIPAC, rabid war-mongering on the right, etc.) I'd hate to risk my candidacy and election on some pure liberal position if I were her. This is tough to decipher.
Her challenges are manifest: many men who distrust a female as head of state, many independents (needed for victory) whose views are opaque, and many Dems who just don't like Hillary as Hillary. And Hillary as Clinton. And Hillary as a man-hating feminist (in their thoughts, not mine). I'm not sure if she was fully anti-war she'd get all of the left as supporters, probably not. So she must go where the votes are. That's not cynical, that realistic.
I'm still cutting her a fair amount of slack, and she's not my current choice - I'm not even sure who is: maybe Obama, maybe Edwards, not Richardson.
Final thought: I think all 3 leading Dems can win in the popular vote nationwide (before 11th hour 'surprises'). I am really worried about the electoral college vote however and that's where all 3 Dems raise more concerns than assurances. We've lost two in a row on a few electoral votes in swing states and we face a GOP party that not only knows this, they know how to manipulate this non-democratic structural aspect - AND they have proved willing, twice, to doing all sorts of illegal or non-democratic things to exploit the system.
Sorry for rambling, but this isn't easy to write the plot for.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | July 19, 2007 at 04:13 PM