Clinton’s Remaining Supporters Explained

Hillary Rosen has written what I believe is the definitive explanation of the tenacious continued support for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and I commend her for it. I also found it incredibly moving.

I have said several times now, in this still very young blog, that I don’t like Hillary — never did, probably never will. I have also said, though, that were the remaining candidates more or less equal (which means in part if I didn’t know so much about her vile ways), I’d definitely vote for her over the other candidate(s) — yes! simply because she’s a woman. Call it my personal effort to institute Affirmative Action in primaries and elections if you like. Alas, Clinton and her cohorts and advisors and hangers on (yeah, including Bill) represent and exemplify so much of what I don’t want in Washington that I’m dead set against her for nominee.

Frankly, I suspect that one big reason many of Clinton’s diehard supporters still hang on is that they just don’t fully realize that her chances to prevail are so slim at this point, and the Clintons certainly fuel that misperception every chance they get.

But there’s more to it than that and Rosen says Hillary’s supports feel their own message has not been heard. She correctly points out that we’ve not had a discussion of gender as a result of Hillary’s candidacy in the same way we’ve had “an education” regarding race.

She’s right and fortunately, probably the perfect person to deliver this particular message:

I consider myself one of the most race conscious, race sensitive people I know. My own children are bi-racial (like Obama — white birthmother, black birthfather). And yet I learned something so important about race and black consciousness during this campaign. I learned that it doesn’t matter if Bill Clinton (for instance) is a racist or not. The intentions of a person speaking are less relevant in the moment than the impact of the words being spoken. So whatever has been said about African-Americans by white people in this campaign has been heard by many African-Americans as one more layer of seemingly innocent comments built upon a lifetime of insensitivity and slights.

And then she delivers her gut-punching counterpoint:

Yet, for the past few weeks, when Hillary’s supporters suggest that similar comments made about gender have the same hurtful impact, Obama supporters guffaw and most of the media ridicules the notion and ridicules the Senator herself as though she is suggesting that she is losing because of her gender — which incidentally I have never heard her say.

I don’t see very many of her supporters saying that Hillary is losing due to sexism, either, certainly not the ones who know more about her campaign.

Ridicule, btw, is one of the classic strategies the Patriarchy uses to keep women’s issues from gaining any traction. Needless to say, in this instance it’s salt on the wound.

Sexism may not have been the primary cause of her losing campaign, but it certainly harmed her and an unknowable number of votes have been lost for no other reason than sexism.

And as Rosen points out, the sexism aimed at Hillary also wounds the women who are her supporters and, like me, even women who aren’t her supporters. I’ve even seen Republican women upset about the sexism aimed at Hillary.

Rosen nails it with this paragraph, the one that had me in tears (and has me again in tears now as I reread it and share it here):

But Hillary’s campaign is still going for every woman who has spoken up in a meeting and was greeted with silence only to have a man say the same thing and be praised. It endures for the mothers who are taking care of their children and their parents and their home and has no time to take care of herself. It endures for women who are so scared to see her fail because of what it may say about their chances in life. And yes folks, it resonates for all the women who have seen the younger guy come along and get the promotion even though she has worked in the company loyally for years.

Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.

Rosen is quick to say no, it’s not Obama’s fault. Not at all. But, she goes on to point out insightfully, “in a few days it will likely be his responsibility.”

Bingo again.

Obama has shown a lot of class, grace, wisdom and aikido-like adeptness at times in deflecting criticism and various assaults during his campaign. I hope he has the stuff to be able to understand and win over those of us aging boomer women and tired old 2nd Wave feminists whose whole work life is pretty much described in Rosen’s paragraph above and who still hang to Clinton’s candidacy with such tenacity and hope.

Sadly, some of his disdainful treatment of Clinton not to mention his remarks about boomers don’t give me a lot of hope.