Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

UPDATE: Walter Shapiro has an interesting piece on this topic in Salon called "Hillary the Prudent". (You'll have to watch a short ad before accessing Salon.)

I've had a few different opinions on the electability of Senator Hillary Clinton. Mainly it came down to this: I can't vote for her because my parents won't vote for her. That is to say, there are a great number of people in this country who hate the Clintons (individually and separately) on a gut visceral level wherein despite the voter himself swinging left, he still can't stomach a Clinton. My folks are like that; as they return to the center after a brief but eye-opening affair with the right, primed to vote Democratic in '08, they still become enraged when even the name Clinton is mentioned. (Update, 6/07: Not anymore. I asked mom and she just sounded tired. She didn't seem to have anything for or against Hillary, so long as all this Bush crap stops and H doesn't bring her own. Also, I heard recently the phrase "The Clinton psychodrama" as in, we don't want to have to live through their personal psychodrama again. This may replace the old I-want-to-vomit reaction.)

But lately I've been coming around to a far worse realization about Hillary: she's snarky. And she has a chip on her shoulder, combined with a get-out-of-my-way leadership style. And no matter how brilliant each political move she makes may be, it makes me like her less and less.

I think our culture respects the Political Shark. We respect the sort of guy or gal who, unlike most of us, can read keenly the landscape (in this case, national politics) and, like some of those really great moments in The West Wing, can bob and weave and jab and be the one left standing. Even those of us who can't stand Karl Rove still respect his Pol Sharkness. And men and women who can't swim with the PSharks drown, like John Kerry. I once heard someone say, "If Kerry can't face down Rove, what chance would he stand against the terrorists?", a sentiment that shows that while we want Mr. Smith to Go to Washington, we want him to be a PShark when he gets there. Rohm Emmanuel gives me the same feeling, like a shark gliding through the water. I don't have any reason to think he's anything but nice and has anything but our best interests at heart, but I know a PShark when I see one, and this one is hunting.

And despite Howard Dean getting smacked for yelling, we actually like the Mr. Smiths that are angry. We like Jack Cafferty and Lou Dobbs and Keith Olbermann and Randi Rhodes because they are pissed, and so are we. We can't do much, but they can feel our anger and use it to make changes. And so we root for those who run for public office because they are angry, because they feel the country is being hijacked and run off into a ditch, and because they are angry at those people who used their PSharkness to hack and slash their way to power and then used that power to let a city drown and a nation collapse into civil war.

Hillary is certainly a Political Shark. And she got to be that in the most earnest and respectable way possible: she got beaten up time and time again by the PSharks until she learned the ropes. They call that "paying your dues" and I'd say she's done that.

And she has a chip on her shoulder "bigger'n Dallas" as we say here, also earned honestly: the GOP PShark Machine went after her and her husband viciously for years, nearly destroying her marriage*, trying to bring down a Presidency, trashing the successes of the Clinton Administration to the point that the things the CA had done well, like the budget surplus and a strong, sleek FEMA and going after Osama Bin Laden were completely abandoned as if they had scarlet fever germs and were to be burned to protect the family. (Have you read The Velveteen Rabbit?) And you see how well that all turned out for the country. So she is pissed off, and I don't blame her for that, she certainly earned those stripes the hard way too.

Lastly, she strikes me as no-nonsense, something else she's earned the hard way. I imagine after what she went through with her husband, it's natural for her to get real clear and real down-to-business real quick. "No more BS, no more pretending everything is fine, it is what it is and I'm not going to gild it, I'm just going to fix it, so get out of my way and hand me that wrench."

There is nothing wrong with Mrs. Clinton being all of these things in one person, a Political Shark with a chip on her shoulder and a Lance-Armstrong-esque determination. If she had emerged on the national stage as this person, with all of these traits (let's say they were learned over many years in a state congress or as the DA for a major city, but off the national press radar), we might champion her. We might say, "Wow, she's got the whole package, I think she can kick the crap out of the GOP in '08. Why, it almost seems like a shame that the GOP has weakened themselves, when we finally have such a good fighter on our side."

The problem for me is this: I saw it happen. Like sausage, you don't want to see a Political Shark get made. I remember everything from the demure black headband and the cookie comment to standing on a dais with Newt Gingrich championing something I can't remember. (Actually, that cookie comment, to the effect of "I'm no Tammy Wynette who will just stand by her man," makes a perfect example when compared to how she ended up doing just that after it all went to hell.) I remember her dutifully voting for the use of force resolution because Hillary the PShark had determined This Is A Good Year For Laying Low & Not Being Controversial. Come to think of it, the Newt Gingrich bipartisan stuff looks a lot like This Is A Good Time To Show I Can Work With Them. I remember her rightfully accusing a Right Wing Conspiracy of relentlessly attacking her husband, and even though she was right and we knew it, she came off paranoid and delusional. I remember her being torn apart by wolves over her health care plan in 1992, and how shocked she looked, but not as shocked as when her cracking marriage was exploded all over the national press.

Whenever I try to relate a string of details like that, I can't help but support her. Because she did learn from all these horrendously difficult challenges and rather than running away, she adapted and grew and developed all the skills she lacked when she first appeared on the national stage. I'm not saying that anything she's done is wrong or illegitimate (in this post, I reserve the right to criticize her as the campaign wears on, of course) or that any of it isn't understandable.

But she makes me very uncomfortable. I find her prickly and conniving and even when a campaign move is arguably a good one, like her "dialogue" with the people of America rather than a "campaign", and her little town meeting tour, I just want to throw up. It all seems so contrived and hokey. Does she really think we're that stupid? That we would think that her sudden publicity stunts are anything other than campaign trail moments? Why hadn't she talked to us before, if she cares what we think so much?

Yes, she has been working faithfully in the Senate for the citizens of New York for 8 years, and yes, she should get points for that. (One thing I don't like about Obama is that he ran for a six-year job as Senator and is leaving to campaign nationally after just two years, which I think shows a lack of commitment to ones constituency that Clinton had the good sense to avoid by staying in, laying low, working very hard, and improving her street cred with other Senators and Congresspeople.) And I'm a Texan, as a NY Senator she didn't really need to talk to me, I guess. But you know, even as I watched her do the very right thing, no question, I felt like I could see right through it all. I was watching her get ready for 2008, and every Gingrich photo op cemented my feelings even more.

So no, I'm not endorsing Hillary-- yet. If she's the last PShark Dem left standing, well, I guess I'll have to because I don't trust the GOP farther than my flabby matronly arms could throw them. And I would be psyched to vote for a female president. But if you ask me what I think of her, I have to say, she gives me the willies and I don't think I'm going to get over that.

I should probably make this a separate post, but let me just quickly throw something in about our black(?) and female candidates: Everyone keeps asking if we're "ready" for either one. I would say, yes, yes, and hell yes. If we can credit the GOP for nothing else, members like Condi Rice and Colin Powell have put the issues to bed that being black or a woman would hamper one in any way. On the other hand, the fact that we've never had a Jew, a Muslim, a black, or a woman as President sort of speaks for itself (and others definitely think it speaks volumes). I think the real question behind this "can we handle it" question is: What's really going to happen on election day? Will Americans get behind Obama only to find the racists in our country come out of the woodwork-- like the anti-gays did in 2004 especially-- and in sheer numbers of voters block the Black? They say that Hurricane Katrina lifted the rock and found the squirming racism underneath, does that mean that there is a secret underlying racism at the heart of our voters that would rear its ugly head on Election Day?

Same thing but less so for a woman. The last time that we had a woman in the national race, Geraldine Ferraro, there was a lot of talk about PMS and other "hysterical" traits a woman surely has that would keep her from being an effective leader. Do you, they asked, want a sobbing PMS-er with her hand on the nuclear button? But those arguments have been debunked in the intervening 20 years, and like I say, there is no better example than Condi Rice, who has been both our National Security Advisor and our Secretary of State, which means that she had her hand on that proverbial button even more so than a VP would, and she has been wrong. Haha, I couldn't resist. What I mean to say is she has been cool and collected and accomplished, and where she has been ineffective at her job it has had more to do with being a part of this distastrous GOP than with being a woman. I don't think we can ever ask those stupid questions about women again, all we have to do is silently point to a pic of Dr. Rice-- or Madeline Allbright if you prefer, or Speaker Pelosi or Senator Clinton herself. And of course we could also point to all the women in all the other areas of society, from astronauts (murderous diaper-wearers aside) to presidents of Harvard. I think that question is put to bed.

Not that we don't have equally good examples of African-Americans-- hello, Dr. Rice, again. But as I said, this is really the question of "Will a previously unknown but dominant sentiment of racism and/or antifeminism scuttle the election at the last minute?" And I believe that if such a thing were to happen, it would more likely be about race than about gender. I think that there is more vestigal racism left in our national character than misogyny, at least when it comes to national elections.

The answer to the question, "Are we ready for an African-American or a woman President?" is a resounding yes, and polls show the public is way out in front of this issue to the point that it wonders why on earth Wolf Blitzer is asking it.

But the answer to the real question, "Will racism and/or antifeminism rear up and keep a black or female candidate out of the White House?" is more subtle. I think that it is far less likely that it would keep Hillary out of office than it would Barrack. If there is a secret malicious sentiment out there in the heart of the voting public, I suspect that it is racist against African-Americans more so than antifeminist against female candidates. But I just can't predict what will actually happen. We don't like to admit that there is still racism in this country, so we talk like it isn't there, but it might still be deep down, enough to keep Sen. Obama from being elected. I don't think that we'll know the answer to that question until it finally plays out once and for all.

UPDATE 6/11/07: I have gotten more and more like Yosemite Sam, throwing my hat and stomping on it and yelling, "Ooh, that varmit!" at the lack of leadership, especially in the Congress. The tide of public opinion has turned, it doesn't put you that far out on a limb to call for impeachment, etc. I know, that's the House and this "Senator" can't actually call for the i-word, but she can lead, dammit, and all she does is have crappy "dialogues" and make stupid parody videos! So today I got an email from her campaign the subject of which was, "Help Me Make A Video for Hillary" and I freakin' lost it. Here is what I wrote back:

YOU need MY help? Puh-leeze!

Quit screwing around and call for impeachment. You are a leader in the Senate who never leads. You are in the position to take action that will go down in the history books and instead you have jumped whole hog into the campaign like we don't have issues TODAY that SENATORS could help alleviate NOW.

The rest of this, videos and whatnot, is just crap! People are dying and MY OWN FAMILY MEMBERS are oversees being shot at and blown up. Worse than all of this is the Constitutional crisis we are careening into while the worst crooks in history fracture our military and wipe their ass with the Constitution.

And this morning I get an email from you with the subject "Help Make Hillary's Next Video"?!?!?!?!?!

GO TO HELL!!!!!

Sincerely,
Jill Swanson
no longer your supporter

As you can see, I was a bit upset. And then I went over to her blog and posted it there. I really shouldn't email people while I'm having my first caffeine jolt. Nevertheless, if you agree with me, then let's find another candidate and get behind him.

*Don't write me about this: no one is to blame for Bill's cheating other than Bill. I know what "sins" and whose violated their vows-- or as much as one can know about these things. However, to have your personal pain played out all over the national media because you're both being drug through the mud by your enemies puts even more strain on the marriage itself, and I think it was the GOP's aim to get them to separate or divorce while in office, so I definitely believe they were trying to destroy the marriage itself. A fine distinction, but worth noting.