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January 8, 2008
Updated: Woman wins presidential primary
I just wanted to see that headline in my lifetime.
As a kid, I would never have imagined I would write it.
Squirming pundits and pollsters wonder how they got this one so wrong. Here's how Jonathan Alter of Newsweek led,
The results of the New Hampshire primary help explain why politics is so fascinating for those of us who cover it, even though we all look more than faintly ridiculous right now.
I don't have a clear explanation for how Hillary Clinton defied the polls and prognosticators to win, but amid our compromised credibility as analysts, let me humbly try. I do so with the help of my wife, Emily Lazar, whose own switching back and forth between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may mirror some of what went on in the minds of ambivalent New Hampshire women, whose last minute shift back to Clinton gave her the victory....
Crunchy bits:
...her angry outburst in the ABC News debate made some men think of shrewish ex-wives, it seemed justified to many women, who thought she had reason to be peeved.
In a workplace context, Obama may have reminded women of under-qualified hotshots who come along and get the big job with less experience because they're cooler and have more rapport with the boss and are, after all, men...
Comedian Chris Rock's punchline, "I think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that one?" must resonate at least a little with every woman who has ever been told by a man that she'd be perfect if it weren't for her (mole, ankles, voice, whatever).
Hillary has run the gauntlet of debates and hostile interviews with intelligence and guts. Grudgingly, perhaps, women give her props for strength and courage in the face of personal attacks that range from sneering dismissal to outright hate. The rest of us, almost to a woman, wouldn't want to break that ground if it meant hoeing that hard row.
If Hillary Clinton actually makes it to the White House, nobody will doubt that she earned her place in history the hard way.
Update: In Salon, Rebecca Traister calls out the old boys (The witch ain't dead, and Chris Matthews is a ding-dong: The glee with which Matthews and other angry male pundits prematurely danced on Hillary's grave made me -- for one night only -- a Clinton supporter):
The five days between Iowa and New Hampshire were discombobulating for anyone who had begun to get comfortable with the apparent ease with which American history had weirdly, smoothly made room for a female candidate. A woman had led the Democratic nominees for nearly a year with barely a whisper -- save for the occasional unflattering wrinkled photo -- of serious double-standard resistance from a nation that has yet to break its streak of white Christian guys sitting behind the Oval Office desk. It had all been so deceptively easy. But here were the buttoned up white boys over at Meet the Press going all Lord of the Flies on her. Cintra Wilson called the spectacle "a little witch-burny," while Time's Michael Scherer blogged about a call he'd received from a conservative pundit who told him, "The witch is dead, and life is going to change." The pundits, Clinton's opponents, her colleagues -- they were making sport of Hillary's immolation. They were rolling in it. Exulting in it. It reeked of a particular kind of relief, relief from the guys who had thought they were going to have to hold their noses and get pushed around by some dame. They were behaving like men who had received a sudden and unexpected reprieve, and classily reacted by pulling down their pants and peeing on her.
And then ... people began to notice. In my circle, mothers in particular began to notice. My friends and colleagues told me of their despondent moms. Even my own, whose politics list far to the left of Clinton's, bowled me over by expressing her sadness about the treatment Hillary received. I think she was surprised herself as she confessed that she was "sad" about Iowa. "Whether or not it's Hillary," she said, "I just think this shows that any woman who's going to be aggressive enough to make a go of it is going to be too aggressive to be likable."
Historical note: Shirley Chisholm won the N.J. primary in 1972; Jesse Jackson won S.C. in 1988.
Posted by Sheila Lennon 
at 11:37 PM | Permalink
"I think America is ready for a woman president. But does it have to be that one?"
So true. And Gloria Steinem should be ashamed of herself, advocating a vote for Hillary because she's a woman. I can just imagine the reaction if someone went around advocating a vote for the other candidates in order to stop a woman.
By the way, as you may know, neither Obama or Edwards is on the Michigan ballot, so that doesn't mean much to Democrats. It's not clear if Michigan will even have any delegates seated at the convention.
Posted by: karen anne on January 9, 2008 10:12 AM
Karen, aren't many blacks pulling for Obama because he's black? I was in parochial school in 1960 when it mattered a lot that John F. Kennedy might become the first Catholic president.
I think the Chris Rock quote could be applied to any woman without the speaker officially sounding sexist. ("Sure, when the perfect woman appears we'll consider her.")
I have been leaning toward John Edwards' populist message, but I recoiled from the piling on of the past week, and the unvarnished glee from Chris Matthews et al in the apparent downfall of another "uppity woman."
If Hillary now gets to throw off the handlers and do the rest of this her own way, this process could get a lot more interesting.
Posted by: Sheila on January 9, 2008 12:08 PM
On another topic, given that the polls kept showing Obama winning, I wonder if perhaps we're beginning to see a real shift in the accuracy of polls. More and more people (like myself) have gotten rid of landlines and thus cannot be reached by pollsters, and many others were so disgusted by all of the political calls in the last election cycle that they may be more likely to hang up on pollsters. Those two things are very hard to measure accurately, but I wonder if they are to the point where they are making a significant difference.
Posted by: Dub Not Dubya on January 9, 2008 4:40 PM
That's probably part of it, Dub, but you wouldn't think the heavy cell phone/no landline folks were the older women who pushed her over the top.
I know pollsters were saying in the last election that that was the last time they'd have a representative demographic sample.
Posted by: Sheila Lennon on January 9, 2008 6:49 PM
I am pretty sure Jesse won more than that. I was one of his precinct captains, and I particularly remember his winning Michigan. If my hazy memory serves me correctly, it was after that that he made the cover of Time. Before then, his bid was not taken seriously by the media.
Wiki says (for whatever that is worth):
"He ... won 11 contests: seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont). Jackson also scored March victories in Alaska's caucuses. Some news accounts credit him with 13 wins. ...After he won 55% of the vote in the Michigan Democratic caucus..."
Yup, he did well. I wanted to dispel the "first" stuff I'm hearing from some young people about Iowa, without shiftng focus. Thanks for filling in the details -- sheila
Posted by: karen anne on January 12, 2008 7:40 AM
Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published.
