Campaign Post-Mortem: Hillary, Sexism, and Media Bias

1) Hillary. Call me hard-hearted, call me mean, call me the last Hillary-basher, but very little that Hillary has done over the last month has given me any reason to cheer. I understand that now that she has lost, it's fashionable to take part in a pity party for Hillary. But you'll excuse me if I don't join in. Take, for example, her belated concession speech on Saturday. Media mavens fell all over themselves praising her effort. From the likes of Matthews, Russert and Buchanan I heard, "she knocked it out of the park," "she did everything Obama could ask," "she covered every base." In my view, all these bouquets were way over the top, for several reasons. First and foremost, Hillary was only giving the speech because a gun had been put to her head.

Earlier in the week when she spoke to her most stalwart supporters in the New York delegation, the head of the delegation, congressman Charlie Rangel knew that unless she acted quickly, not only would she permanently damage herself, she would take members of the New York delegation down with her. As powerful as Rangel is--chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee--he knew that it would stain his reputation to be seen as stiff-arming Barack Obama for a full week, as Hillary had originally planned. So he laid down the law, and pressured her to get it done by Saturday. Can you imagine? Hillary actually wanted to hold off for a week before conceding to Obama!

Why would she want to delay that long? Because she still harbored the warped view that she could call up super delegates, twist some arms, and get them to change their minds--an amazing feat of self-delusion. I truly believe that on Tuesday, June 3, the whole Hillary campaign experienced a kind of mass delusion. After all, what person in their right mind, on the very night that they lost the nomination, would have a former head of the DNC (Terry McAuliffe) introduce them as "the next president of the United States?" Further, if one really wants to be the vice-presidential choice--as Hillary apparently does--what sane person would simultaneously refuse to concede, insult the winner, and then dispatch surrogates (Lanny Davis and Bob Johnson) to start petitions and lobbying efforts on her behalf for the vice-presidency? This was truly crazy stuff.

The media however, were happy on Saturday that Hillary had done something right, so they could heap praise on her and deflect some of the criticism directed at them for their perceived anti-Hillary bias. The media love-in notwithstanding, for me, it resembled the student who produces a well-written term paper, but turns it in a week late. Nice, but nothing to write home about. One final note about the speech. It was striking to me that when Hillary would toot her own horn, her eyes would light up and her face would assume that classic Hillary-frozen-smile. When she would talk about Obama, however, she never smiled once. Hillary's endorsement of Obama was an act of agony for her.

2) Sexism. One of the misguided notions promoted by Hillary supporters is that sexism played a significant role in the campaign. They point to the taunting sign at the New Hampshire rally that read "iron my shirt," and see it as a broad sentiment, rather than a couple of kids acting out. They point to some of the lines uttered on cable networks such as, "every time I hear Hillary speak, I involuntarily cross my legs" (Tucker Carlson), "she could say 'I want to give Glenn Beck a million dollars,' and all I'd hear is, 'take out the garbage!'" (Glenn Beck), "when she reacts to Obama with the look... looking like everyone's first wife standing outside probate court... " (Mike Barnacle), and "when that voice of hers goes up and hits the high pitch, brother, you know every husband in America has heard that..." (Pat Buchanan).

The problem with these examples is that they are not evidence of a broad antipathy toward women; rather, they are Hillary-specific. Does anyone really believe that if the candidate were Nancy Pelosi, or Claire McCaskill, or Kathleen Sebelius, or Diane Feinstein, that Carlson, Barnacle, Buchanan, et al. would have said the same thing? Of course not, because those women are not seen as calculating, ruthless, or hostile in the manner of Hillary. On the very night that her opponent became the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton is perhaps the only politician on the planet who would have been boorish enough to insult him with this line about universal health care, "I have been working on this issue not just for the past 16 months, but for 16 years."

But the clearest indicator that sexism played little role in the campaign was that in West Virginia (as well as Kentucky) a place where you'd expect sexism to show itself, males supported Hillary over Obama by 60-30%. When exit pollsters asked men whether gender was important to them, those men who said "yes" supported Hillary 64-29%. Men who said that gender was not important supported Hillary by 59-31%. So men who regarded gender as important actually supported Hillary more strongly than their counterparts. No evidence of sexism there. And here is some final food for thought: Of the 22% of West Virginians who said that "race" was important in their decision, 84% voted for Hillary. Is there any doubt that racism was a far more potent variable than sexism? The difference between the two candidates, however, is that you don't hear Obama whining about it.

3) Media Bias. Perhaps the most wrongheaded, mythical notion in the campaign is that the media were allied against Hillary. In trying to make this point, typically some pundit will adduce a study by one of those media watchdog groups that says something like "Between Super Tuesday and May, the percentage of positive comments in the media about Obama was 65%, compared to only 40% for Hillary Clinton." This is usually followed by, "Aha! Gotcha!" Unfortunately, this is an unforgivably shallow analysis. Simply looking at percentages, without relating them to specific events in the campaign, has no value whatsoever. For example, let's look at what was happening between Super Tuesday and May: Obama went on a winning streak of 12 events. Hillary ran out of money. Hillary lent her campaign millions of dollars. Patty Solis Doyle was fired and Mark Penn was demoted. Of course Hillary was getting bad press. She deserved bad press! The premise that both candidates should get the exact same percentage of positive comments from the media is preposterous. Obama ran the superior campaign, which was reflected in the media commentary. That's not bias, that's called journalism.

4) The Veep Revisited. First, the notion of Hillary as veep is a non-starter. She dissed and attempted to undermine Obama at every turn of the campaign. Were I Obama, I wouldn't let her within 50 miles of the job. And the reason we know that she won't be chosen, is the amount of praise that he's been heaping upon her. This is Obama's way of setting up a "soft landing" when he chooses someone else.

Further, it is trendy to suggest that Obama needs someone to win back Hillary's female supporters. I have a higher regard for her supporters than to think that they would allow John McCain to name the next two Supreme Court justices, that they would imperil a woman's right to choose, that they would let universal health care go abegging, that they would let McCain veto an expansion of children's health insurance again, or that they would vote for a continuation of the war out of some misplaced spite at Obama.

To the contrary, the demographic that Obama needs most is that of white males. I have already given my list of favorite prospects in previous blogs--Kaine of Virginia, Rendell of Pennsylvania, Richardson of New Mexico, among others. But currently my favorite choices are: Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Joe Biden of Delaware, and Bill Richardson. My favorite of those three? Chris Dodd, who is totally simpatico with Obama, who radiates strength and intelligence, and who has strong national security credentials. More on the veep in future blogs.....
- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 11:35 AM

 
Why Did the Super Delegates Abandon Hillary?

As the primary season reaches its end, it is interesting to ponder why Hillary Clinton couldn't attract more super delegates to her campaign. At the time of Super Tuesday, February 5, Clinton led Obama by almost 100 super delegates (203-113). As I write this, realclearpolitics.com shows Obama with a current lead of 43 "supers" over Hillary (334-291). Even as Hillary has produced impressive victories in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico, her relative support among supers continues to decline. Since Super Tuesday, Obama has garnered 133 more supers than Clinton. So what happened? Here are my thoughts:

1) Hillary misjudged her constituency. Super delegates and average voters are two completely different breeds of cat. The Clinton campaign never quite grasped the fact that a pitch made at ordinary voters might have unintended effects on super delegates. As it turned out, many of the Clinton campaign tactics had the effect of alienating the very super delegates that she needed so desperately.

To give an example, for weeks Clinton has been making the pitch that "I'm ahead in the popular vote." The casual viewer tuning in to CNN, or the voter listening to her on the stump hears this line and is impressed by this new information. The super delegates, on the other hand, hear this claim, and understand it to be a fraud. Having followed this matter closely, they know that Hillary only leads in the popular vote if you award her every vote in Florida and Michigan--two primaries that didn't count--and award Obama no votes in Michigan, where he wasn't on the ballot, and no votes in the caucus states like Iowa, Nevada, Maine, and Washington state, where raw vote numbers were not released. Here is Clinton making this claim in her victory speech in Puerto Rico:

We are winning the popular vote. Now there can be no doubt. The people have spoken and you have chosen your candidate. So when the voting concludes on Tuesday, neither Senator Obama nor I will have the number of delegates to be the nominee. I will lead the popular vote. He will maintain a slight lead in the delegate count.

To the average voter these sound like good selling points. To a super delegate these claims come across as tortured manipulations of the data. Michael Dobbs, the Washington Post Fact Checker, put it this way:

She seems to assume that if she says something loudly enough, and repeats it often enough, it will become true. Her victory speech in Puerto Rico was a minor masterpiece in carefully parsed self-delusion....After the Puerto Rico primary, and the rules changes adopted over the weekend, most estimates now put Obama within 45 votes of the 2,118 needed to secure the nomination. Clinton, meanwhile, is 200 votes away from the magic figure. That is hardly "a slight lead" in the delegate count.

Dobbs went on to award Hillary "two Pinocchios" for her popular vote claims. Clinton's artful use of the vote count plays very poorly with Democratic politicians, in part because it conjures up the image of George W. Bush's selective use of facts during his two terms. Honesty and straight talk are the currency of the realm in the Democratic Party, and when Hillary veers off of this path, her support among supers dwindles.

This same dynamic applies to the recent battle over the disposition of the Florida and Michigan delegates. On October 11, 2007, during an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio's Laura Knoy, this exchange took place:

Laura Knoy: "So, if you value the DNC calendar, why not just pull out of Michigan? Why not just say, Hey Michigan, I'm off the ballot?"

Hillary Clinton: "Well, you know, It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything."

By contrast, here is Hillary Clinton speaking to senior citizens in Florida 10 days ago:

....people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.... We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe...Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people...So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote. It is the single most important, privilege and right any of us have, because in that ballot box we are all equal. You’re equal to a billionaire. You’re equal to the president, every single one of us.

To the elderly voters of Sunrise, Florida, this is effective campaign rhetoric. To the super delegates, who are fully aware that Clinton originally fully supported the decision that decertified the Florida and Michigan primaries, this is outrageous stuff. Once again, Hillary's rhetoric smacks of the kind of manipulations that prevailed during the Bush years. An outlandish comparison between DNC policy and the Zimbabwe elections is a good way to energize your supporters, but it is not an effective way to woo super delegates.

2. The super delegates envision Obama as the better president. In the final phase of the primary campaign, Hillary Clinton's main theme has been that she is more electable than Obama. This notion has not gained much traction with supers for several reasons: First, as the polls constantly shift, the case could be made for the electability of either candidate depending on which poll you cite. At this moment for example, the realclearpolitics.com projection of the general election shows Obama with 228 electoral votes in hand, and Hillary with 229 electoral votes. Second, the fact that the general election is five months away makes all such polls fairly meaningless. It is mind-boggling to consider that the amount of time between today and the general election--154 days--is actually more than the time between the Iowa Caucuses and today--151 days. That's an eternity in political time! And finally, the super delegates all along have been concerned less with electability than they have a more fundamental issue: Who would make the better president?

Despite the fact that the stated policy differences between Obama and Clinton are miniscule, it is likely that each candidate would be dramatically different as president. That is because one's success or failure as president depends as much on leadership style, coalition building, atmospherics, and ability to inspire, as it does on one's concrete ideas for the country. And if Barack Obama sometimes seems too cool in his personal style, Hillary's problem is just the opposite: She brings drama and confrontation wherever she goes. The super delegates remember well why the phrase "politics of personal destruction" became so prevalent during the term of Bill Clinton. The world of the Clintons is filled with both victims and victimizers.

After claiming back in the 1990's that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," Hillary has recently suggested that she is now the victim of a left-wing conspiracy, in which the media is complicit. Further allegations of sexism, and "disrespect" toward Hillary have raised the temperature even more during the campaign. While such claims by Hillary are once again effective in mobilizing her base, they have little purchase over super delegates. While Hillary was exhorting her supporters to attend the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on Florida and Michigan, in the hope that they would pressure the committee into awarding Hillary a bushelful of delegates, Obama was sending out a memo to his supporters urging just the opposite, good behavior and decorum. The petulance and unruliness of the Clinton supporters in Washington did nothing to win over super delegates.

Obama and Clinton have marketed themselves with quite different brands: Since the beginning of his campaign, Obama had claimed that he would offer a new and more principled form of leadership. Clinton has claimed she is tough enough, even ruthless enough to beat the Republicans at their own game. Interestingly, both candidates have lived up to their billing. But as five members of Bill Clinton's cabinet have endorsed Obama, as Hillary has lost the endorsements of erstwhile friends such as Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, and Chris Dodd, it has become clear that only one of those brands represents the change that the majority of Democrats so desire.
- posted by jeffrowan111 @ 8:07 AM