Friday, January 04, 2008 - Posts
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Thought I should jump in on Emily Y., Dahlia, and Emily B.'s discussion on young women voting for Obama over Hillary since, well, I'm a young woman who plans to vote for Obama over Hillary. The truth is, the symbolism of Hillary's gender and Obama's race matters immensely to me. Though I have grown up in an era when women and minorities run Fortune 500 companies, I think we're far from equality, and I'm absolutely giddy at the prospect of having a woman or a black man whose middle name is Hussein running things around here for a while. Ultimately, I'll be delighted if either one becomes president, but I'm rooting for Obama because his presidency wouldn't just be a giant step for the United States, but for the West. There's precedent for Hillary (Thatcher and Merkel), but not for Obama.
Andrew Sullivan expressed my feelings about the Iowa caucus winner better than I ever could in a recent article for the Atlantic, so I'll quote him instead of blathering: "Consider this hypothetical. It's November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man--Barack Hussein Obama--is the new face of America. In one simple image, America's soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm."
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All I can say is, the women in my book are looking smarter by the minute. Though the favored narrative -- that it's women voters who make President Hillary a slam-dunk inevitability -- is still so entrenched that it wasn't so easy to locate the news that Iowa women actually favored Obama in today's Washington Post. Oddly, even their graphic broke out the percentage of women and men who supported each of the Republican candidates, but not the Democrats.
Obama prevailed last night not because we're more ready for an African-American than for a woman in the White House, but because he is striking chords about the hoped-for future that resonate in ways that her theme song --- "Don't Stop (Thinking about the '90s)" -- does not. And even if they agree on nothing, in tone and pitch I see a lot of similarities between Obama and last night's GOP winner, Mike Huckabee. As does a friend of mine who lives in Ames, Iowa, and caucused for Obama. Her report seems on the money:
One aspect of the whole experience that confirmed my choice was the speeches given by the candidates afterwards. Edwards was very fiery and compelling, but he still was saying the same exact things I'd heard him say at town meetings. He just repackaged his script. Still, I give him credit for championing his causes over the status of his candidacy. Hillary, on the other hand, was all about 'I, I, I.' For the first time, I realized that when she is not parsing the specifics of policy issues, she is talking about herself: her accomplishments, her expertise, her experience. It may be good to know these things, but they do nothing to inspire the electorate. In effect, she doesn't convey a vision for the future. She just touts a knowledge base that has evolved over the years. So when, in turn, Obama speaks as a visionary who will unite the country using the politics of inclusion, it really is music to the ears. He has that rare ability to actually inspire people, and that is why he won.
Huckabee showed a similar charisma in his speech. I know that he has an uphill battle ahead of him and he may not succeed, and I disagree with him on just about every topic, but given who he is, I thought he gave an amazing speech. I wanted to hug him and say, "If only you weren't so daffy in so many ways and didn't take such oddball positions on things, I'd like to be your friend!"
The "I wanted to hug him'' factor should never be underestimated. And though Hillary is in no way out of contention now, her plan of attack -- to attack Barack -- is only another confirmation that her playbook is perfect for the last war.
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Dahlia, regarding your response to Emily B's question about why younger women aren't more excited about Hillary. Couldn't the same point be made about black achievement? That is, younger people have grown up in a world where it's no big deal that the mayor is black, or corporate executives are black, or the secretary of state is black. I don't think young women are turning to Obama because they've said, "It will mean more to have the first black president than the first female president." I think they are simply responding to two people and the response is,"He makes me feel excited about what a president could be. She doesn't." Isn't that the way it should be -- that we are deciding about them as individuals and not heavy symbols of race or gender? Sure, their race and gender are there for all to see, but I've been grateful that in this campaign both Obama and Hillary have only rarely made it an explicit issue.
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That’s a great question, Emily. You’d kind of expect it to be the opposite: older women grown weary of the Clinton baggage, and younger women less inclined to see her as back to the future.
I wonder whether young women can’t get that excited about Clinton for the same reason many of them can’t get fired up about the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned. This is the world they know. Younger women have no experience of an America without women at the helm of Fortune 500 companies and women in Congress.
The generation that lived through the 1960s knows what America was like before women really seized leadership professions, and they must see what Hillary is poised to do as nothing short of miraculous. Perhaps younger women see it as inevitable. In which case they can afford to wait a while for a woman who really does excite them.
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Women came out in Iowa last night-for Obama. He won with them overall, and among younger women with a wide margin. Hillary Clinton carried only the older-women crowd. That was reflected at the caucus I went to, especially in a mother-daughter pair who split Clinton-Obama, respectively.
If this dynamic continues in a couple of more states, Clinton will be toast, won't she? Is there something impressive about younger women transcending identity politics? Or is this really more about these particular candidates, and the change vs. experience choice they've come to represent?
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So, the big GOP winner in Iowa was Mike Huckabee. Not surprising, considering the polls, but that hasn't stopped the hysteria. Andrew Sullivan last night seemed almost giddy that he'd forseen the surrender of the GOP to the Christianist right, and in the New York Times, David Brooks put Huckabee's victory on par with Obama's for the Democrats as a "political earthquake. "
Forgive me, but I can't get that worked up about Huckabee, though I have no wish for him to win the GOP nomination. For one, the evangelical turnout in Iowa was huge. About 60 percent of Iowa's GOP caucus-goers identified as evangelical and half voted for the former governor; in the general population, 26 percent of Americans are evangelical. New Hampshire is just a few days away, and if Huckabee's victory helped anyone, it was John McCain. If McCain wins New Hampshire, that could give him enough momentum to weather a Huckabee victory in South Carolina and hang on for Super Tuesday.
And what if it came down to a race between Obama and McCain? They'd be two refreshing candidates, largely untainted by scandal, whom their respective parties could rally around positively rather than spending six months tearing down the other guy. I can't help but think that would be an OK thing for this country.
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