More Clinton Post Mortem Irony
Elliot at Election Inspection makes a great point.
This isn’t amusing to me, in fact it’s kinda tragic, for all of Clinton’s talk about being unfairly attacked because of her gender, she’s actually made it harder for another woman to make a credible run at the presidency in the future.
Frankly, my dear, I think the point is Bull.Shit.
Defining other women’s possible work to become president by the work of one strikes me as a very 19th century thing to do.
Which is very likely why The New Republic is making that insane observation.
Fair enough.
…but… I think the point that Obama tried to move the frame away from the beer drinking macho-man frame that we are all used to is valid.
Naw, I call horseshit too. Clinton’s are Clinton’s are Clinton’s. No one is surprised by how they operated and I doubt that it is extrapolatable to any other candidate under the sun.
The point may wwell be valid. Mrs Clinton started out as the presumptive nominee, Her Inevitableness, and she totally blew it. She had huge fund-raising advantages and an awesome political machine behind her, plus a party nominating electorate that is majority female.
Compound that with the never-spoken-about assumption that she was the most qualified woman because she is the wife of a former president. Just what does that say about how women candidates are really viewed in the Democratic Party? Your own governess, Ruth Minner, has held an executive office, that she won on her own, not because she was some particular man’s wife, and she’s held it for as long as Mrs Clinton has been in the Senate. And governors are far more likely to be elected to the presidency than senators. Yet has anyone, has a single soul, considered Mrs Minner to be presidentibili?
There have been dozens of female governors and senators, who won their offices on their own, yet none of them have been considered serious presidential candiodates; only the woman who was married to a president was considered seriously.
You might want to ask why that worked out that way.
You might want to ask why that worked out that way.
You’re kidding, right? The key is married to an ex-president. Which means she would start out with a funding network, with access to campaign execs, with an entree to state and issues orgs that others might have to work harder to get.
But I don’t buy that her only qualifications were that she was married to a popular ex-president. That just gave her advantages that others would not have. But clearly advantages squandered by her campaign — and her badly run campaign (and a failure to account for the Iraq vote) really is the reason why she is not the nominee.
If she were the nominee, she’d still be a better and more capable President that John McCain.
Folks talked wistfully about Jennifer Granholm as President one day — except she was born in Canada.
Cassandra, as you say, “If she were the nominee, she’d still be a better and more capable President that John McCain,” let me ask you a simple question: just what has Hillary Clinton actually accomplished on her own?
She won a Senate seat, but only because of her husband’s name. She was hired by the Rose Law Firm, only because her husband was governor. She has no legislation of any note to her credit, and no accomplishments of any sort in the Senate. Ruth Minner, for all that y’all make fun of her, has run a state for almost eight years now.
And John McCain is more experienced, more qualified, and will make a better president than either Democrat still running.
Dana –
She did not win a Senate seat because of her husband’s name. Do you think that vapid Laura Bush could win a senate seat? Hardly. She shares a brain with her husband.
She fought hard to pull of that victory and she did it out of sheer determination and hard work. If you recall, her husband’s final two years were hardly his best. He left the office in shame. People didn’t start to respect him again until he started his global initiative. If anything, the fact that she was Mrs. Bill Clinton was a strike against her.
It’s really demeaning to suggest that the only qualification she had was having been married to someone. How do you suppose she was elected to a second term?
Determination, hard work and LUCK.
Rudy Guliani had a spectacular flameout and she ended up running against a tomato can.
Yes, luck, too. But doesn’t a little bit of luck play into just about every contest (political or otherwise)? Wasn’t Obama lucky that MI & FL moved up their primaries? Wasn’t Bush lucky that the Swiftboaters showed up?
Rudy Guiliani withdrew in 2000 because he had prostate cancer. That may qualify as a spectacular flameout, but it isn’t as though he auditioned his recent Presidential flameout in that Senate race.
Dominique wrote:
Oh, puh-leeze! It doesn’t matter whether you think that she’s brilliant — she isn’t — or a great politician — once again, she isn’t — she was a carpetbagger, a person with no history or connection to New York, who bought a house in Chappequa to extablish residency in time to run for the Senate. Do you seriously believe that New Yorkers would have elected a person who had just barely moved into the state if it were not for some famous political connection?
Of course, they elected a carpetbagger senator once before, Robert Kennedy in 1964; that was another election based on his name.
As for Mrs Clinton sharing a brain with her husband, that happens in science fiction novels. Is Mrs Clinton running as Lurleen Wallace, or as her own person?
George W Bush was lucky that his father was George H W Bush, no doubt about that, and no one seriously denies it. But he did start his 1994 gubernatorial campaign something like 30 points behind Governor Ann Richards, and came on strong to beat her.
Wasn’t Bush lucky that the Swiftboaters showed up?
Bad example. Rove made his own luck on that one.