Since the Iowa caucuses, I've been feeling the Hillary tug. Most of the women I've talked to in the last couple of months have felt it, too: Even if they weren't sure they'd vote for Hillary, they were rooting for her on some level. They wanted her to make a strong showing. They didn't want the girl who worked hard to lose willy-nilly to the guy who waltzed in. Those feelings must have helped bring more women than men to the polls in state after state, almost always in favor of Hillary.
But you know what? The tug doesn't feel the same to me now. I wonder if that's true for other Democratic women who could have gone either way, too. If Obama's margins are wide enough to carry women in Maryland and Virginia and D.C.tonight—and so far, according to the exit polls, he has the majority of women in Virginia, by a lot—maybe this shift will help explain why. Hillary has been an excellent first for us. No one else could have done what she's done, with all her aplomb and professionalism and seriousness. But she doesn't have to be the nominee, or the president, to have come through. She hung in there past every other contender, save one. She made it to the finals, the last round, overtime—whatever sports metaphor you want to use. I don't mean to suggest that she's done. But if she loses for good in the next weeks or months, she loses with dignity and heft and heart. And she'd leave us feeling, in a way I know I've never felt before, that a woman can be elected president. We already owe her. We'd owe her for that, too. Even if we don't owe her, or give her, our votes.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
What We Owe Hillary
Just read this short piece by Emily Bazelon on Slate and it really sums up where I am right now:
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5 comments:
Harrogate doesn't really wanna touch the central issue of debt here, since he isn't really sure about how it is being used, or how he feels about it.
But this is really well said, and Harrogate hopes it proves to be true:
"But if she loses for good in the next weeks or months, she loses with dignity and heft and heart."
Harrogate says he hopes it will be true, and for the most part he thinks it will be true.
But it will not be true if she loses the nomination and then fails to loudly and consistently rally her base for Obama through the General.
If she fails in this capacity, it will be an indirectly divisive action that will harm the Demos' chances, and Harrogate will curse her for it forever.
I don't know... I don't think it's her responsibility to rally the troops, as it were, behind Obama. As long as she doesn't undermine his chances.
And she hasn't lost yet. There may be another President Clinton yet.
Harrogate guesses this is just a major disagreement betwixt us, then.
In Harrogate's mind, whomever emerges from all this with the nomination, a great many of the other one's supporters are going to feel that they have been screwed over.
The writer you quote speaks of what we do or do not owe Hillary Clinton. Harrogate argues fervently that both Obama and Clinton owe us MUCH more than we owe them. It is they who worked hard to remove all other viable contenders from the field, it is they on whom Democrats, Indys, and perhaps, in Obama's words, some disaffectd Republicans, are pinning their aspirations.
Neither of these candidates is bigger than the political party whose mantle they are vying to carry. Much further are they from being bigger than the Nation. Whoever doesn't win owes it to Us to deflate, Aggressively, the inevitable sub-narrative of illegitimacy to come.
I agree with Harrogate. I like Clinton as well and think she would make an excellent president.
But if she loses, in order to keep my respect (worth what little it is) then she has to put aside her differences and rally behind Barak. At the very least, Bill should.
I still have not completely forgiven the Clintons for staying out of the last two elections (yes, I know that 2000 was Gore's choice to his own detriment).
I don't know... I think that Democrats are likely to vote for Obama if he's the nominee, whether or not they voted for him in the primary. Not only do I not think it's the Clintons' responsibility to pull for Obama, but I might even go so far as to argue that their doing so might hurt him nominally with the independents for whom he currently has appeal.
I don't know where I stand on the issue of party before all else. Honestly, I haven't given it much thought before, as the Democratic party hasn't been in a divisive situation like this since I became a voter. Might I request a post and discussion on this issue? I'm curious to hear the thoughts of the bloggers.
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