That’s it. I have decided who to support, who I want to be President.
In the 1970’s, I remember the rhetoric against the Equal Rights Amendment. Men in women’s bathrooms. Shared showers in schools. Horror of all horrors, men would become women and women would become men.
Here we are in 2008 and there is a product out on the market, a nutcracker, in the image of Senator Clinton. You put the nut between her “legs” and she crushes it.
Right. Okay. So why don’t we have an Obama doll in black face? Perhaps because that would be so racist the outcry would be deafening.
I haven’t heard any outrage about the nutcracker. Couple giggles. Isn’t that funny?
No, it isn’t. And it isn’t 1970 anymore. Nor is it 1870.
As a feminist who cut her teeth on abortion clinic lines, as a young woman who watched my mother fight for the ERA only to be told she was a man-hater (she was, after all divorced, too), I find myself in the position with only one candidate to support.
I am voting for Senator Clinton.
I’m not going to argue her record, because she and Obama have made 90% of the same votes in the Senate. I’m not going to argue positions, because for the most part, all three top candidates running for the Democratic nomination are basically the same.
If I were voting for my values, my positions, I’d be voting for Kucinich. The reality of the media’s influence today is once labeled “unelectable,” you are, in fact, unelectable. Which brings me to why I am voting for Clinton.
The media’s portrayal of Clinton’s “breakdown” “crying” “emotional moment” over and over and over again made me so angry I could no longer sit on the sidelines and pick on the Republicans. I mean, Huckabee alone makes it too easy by having friends who attack Cabbage Patch dolls- Bill Gothard called for immediate removal of all dolls because children, by “adopting a doll, … might not want to raise up their own godly children.”
I bet those American Girl dolls are the next incarnation of the devil. But like I said, it’s too easy to pull back the curtain and see all the freaks in Huckabee’s closet.
Clinton had a moment of real emotion, not unlike when she was cracking up being interviewed by Fox News. After all the years- and I mean years- of being framed in the most unflattering way by Fox, when Chris Wallace wishes her well, how could you do anything but laugh?
Ah, but the “tears” … maybe, some questioned, she was being manipulative and manufactured her emotion to get the vote in New Hampshire. Obama can sing and clap along with Donnie McClurkin, a homophobic, “ex-gay” nightmare and no one accuses him of manufactured love to get the vote. Edwards pushes the line of corporate greed versus the poor so hard you half expect him to come out with the Merry Men and Elizabeth dressed as Maid Marian.
I don’t know who those pundits thought lived in New Hampshire, but I can say one thing about my neighboring state- they don’t fall for bullshit. Thus Huckabee’s miserable returns.
I’m done with the nutcrackers, the “iron my shirt” comments, and the cleavage questions. I’m done with the glass ceiling, to be sure, but I’m more done with the symbolic annihilation of Senator Clinton in the media. She has, hands down, the most experience having spent 8 years in the White House already. She is the smartest candidate, without question and her analysis, is thorough and incredibly informed.
Even when I don’t agree, I respect her position.
People have said the “emotional” moment shifted the race for Clinton. It did for me. Not because it made her “real” or more “reachable” or made me feel like she was a pal who I could sit and chat with, because it didn’t. I get the impression she is driven, focused and would actually scare the shit out of me if we ever sat down to talk.
I don’t want someone to talk to. I want someone to fix the mess that George Bush created in this country. I want someone smart, someone who can work DC, and someone who passionately believes in the job.
No matter how threatening it is to anyone’s masculinity.
I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President.
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13 Comments
Welcome! And thanks for the reasoned argument.
rickroberts.myopenid.com | January 13, 2008 5:45 PM
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What's wrong with class criticism?
Alex Blaze | January 13, 2008 6:57 PM
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With all do respect Sarah.
If more people would stand by their values and vote for the candidate they really believed in, none of them would be unelectable.
I couldn't vote for Hill-Dog for a whole list of reasons one of which is her fake Kentucky accent when she spoke in Kentucky last year, proceeded by her fake Texas accent and her fake accents that followed.
I have to get me one of those nut crackers.
That is the best thing about Hill-Dog.
Take care
Sue
Sue Robins | January 13, 2008 7:01 PM
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nothing wrong with class criticism, but how is that going to bring us together in the long run?
Maybe it was the commercials hitting the airways here in MA just before the NH primary but over and over... Corporate America can learn a lot from European companies (great article in NY Times or the WSJ about the resurgence of the European economy last week).
But how does that unite us? And, doesn't he have a butt load of money? how does he justify that? is he good because he "earned" it? or is he part of the problem? I don't find it to be sincere and merely vote mongering.
Sara Whitman | January 13, 2008 7:03 PM
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Absolutely. That was Krugman in the Times.
I'd hope that we'd support good policy making over unity... there was quite a bit of unity when we invaded Iraq, America generally came together to support that, but that doesn't make it good in my book.
Honestly, I think it's more important to keep union-busters like Mark Penn out of the White House than to get poor people to forget their problems so the wealthy don't feel bad about discord.
On sincerity, in fact, I think it's worse that Edwards made that money himself, by that I'm referring to the way he made a lot of it. Since he worked for a firm that deals in off-shore hedge funds (and we know which America is investing in off-shore hedge funds), I too question his sincerity. And Clinton really erases all questions about hers.
Alex Blaze | January 13, 2008 9:31 PM
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Edwards is an old-school demagogue going for class resentment as a source of votes. Obama and Clinton have moved on to the now fashionable theme of "change". In the end, they are all one and the same. Where Edwards stands out is in how obvious his hypocrisy is compared to the better-covered contradictions present over at the Clinton and Obama fields. Here is a man who is decidedly vain, wasting considerable money on haircare (a sign of the very consumerism he denounces) who made his fortune shamelessly as an opportunist trial lawyer.
I do relate to your resentment at the disparity in treatment regarding racist jokes and sexist jokes, though.
Lucrece | January 13, 2008 8:30 PM
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Even allowing for campaign hysterics what’s striking about the supporters of Clinton, Obama and Edwards is that the criticism and ridicule they direct at one another’s candidates has one thing in common – they’re all correct. What’s outlandish is that they see fit to deny the similarities of these Democratic (sic) union busting, gay bashing chickenhawk warhawks candidates and their cousins in the Republican Party.
The point of class criticism is that it will NOT ‘bring us together’. If you oppose the war, want a better standard of living for working people and want an end to racism, immigrant bashing, misogyny and gay bashing then you DO NOT want to come together with those who perpetuate them whether their name is Bush, Clinton, Giuliani, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi, Frank, Armey, or Delay.They’re an obstacle to everything we need.
Class - whether you describe it in terms of class criticism, class consciousness or even class struggle is the sleeping giant of American politics. It was awakened in 1775, 1860 and in 1933. It's reawakening now. Enormous voter indifference, the split in the AFL-CIO coupled with a huge new effort to organize the unorganized, and the steady movement of the constituents of the Democrats and Republicans to the left under the impact of the war, an economic nosedive and betrayals like the rape of ENDA are early indicators. Within a year or so after the election, no matter who wins, the leftward trend will lead to even more splintering and fissuring in American politics - it'll accelerate as it becomes clearer that the Democrats and Republicans only differ cosmetically.
Bill Perdue | January 13, 2008 11:30 PM
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Welcome to Hillaryland, Sara! We're glad to have you here. :-)
Steve Ralls | January 14, 2008 10:19 AM
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Awesome point, Bill!
I do have to say I always appreciate the thought you put into your comments here at Bilerico.
Alex Blaze | January 14, 2008 12:57 PM
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Well historically there have been lots of revolting knickknacks sold and given away during elections. This is right tame you could in years past buy chamber pots with the picture of the candidate you hated most painted on the bottom.
Yes people will always take pot shoots at leading candidates no matter who they are so if your thinking this is all new nope it’s not just do a little research on nasty tricks during elections and you’ll see Tricky Dick was a rank armature!
But by all means get ya selfs out and vote nomatter who you support!
Cathy | January 14, 2008 8:40 PM
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Now that Richardson is out of the race, I look up and notice that my #2 pick, Edwards, is still #3 in a 4-man race. *sigh* I always pick the winner, eh?
I spoke with Hillary several times when Bill ran in 92. That's why I'd choose Obama over her, I guess. They seem about the same in policy. He's more heart. She's more mind.
So what does that make Kucinich?
Bil Browning | January 14, 2008 11:09 PM
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Join the Gravel camp and see how you'd feel.
*sigh*
Alex Blaze | January 15, 2008 1:49 AM
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But how does that unite us? And, doesn't he (Edwards) have a butt load of money? how does he justify that? is he good because he "earned" it? or is he part of the problem? I don't find it to be sincere and merely vote mongering.
Oh, this is just silly. First of all, no one without a "butt load" of money can *ever* run for President in this country. If this were a valid critique of Edwards' message (and it isn't), the logical conclusion is that no one with a chance in hell of ever winning the White House can advocate for the poor.
But I'd really like to know how, exactly, it's hypocritical to simultaneously have a lot of money and still care about the welfare of people who don't. He earned his fortune by representing people who had no power against corporations who had it out the wazoo, and who were used to being able to use that power to screw people over whenever doing so would add a few bucks to the bottom line. I personally don't have any problem with a man getting rich by helping to level the playing field like that, as long as he doesn't turn around and start exploiting the poor once he himself becomes wealthy. I *especially* don't have a problem with it if he continues to advocate for the powerless once he's rich.
And finally, who cares about unity anyway? When's the last time a (sincere) message of "unity" actually won an election in the US?
You write that you find Edwards' populist message insincere vote mongering. Fair enough. I can't argue with that, I guess - and I understand exactly what you mean, as I find a lot about Hilary to be insincere vote mongering as well. (Booga booga! Grand Theft Auto will turn your kids into junkies and street thugs! Booga booga booga!) Different messages resonate with different people, but your questions regarding whether Edwards has the right to send the message he's sending - based strictly on the size of his own personal fortune - seem shallow and poorly thought out.
As to the larger point of the post, you are absolutely correct, and I am saddened to realize that not only would my in-laws find that nutcracker hilarious (which is par for the course with them), but so would my own registered Democrat father. Ugh.
spencer | January 15, 2008 12:28 PM
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