A Steep Hillary to Climb
She's IN! Can you control your excitement?
Kevin Drum offers a post today suggesting that HRC is so formidable as to be almost unbeatable in 2008, although I assume he's talking about the Dem primaries rather than the general election. 'Cause I'd assume that, on that front, she's unelectable. For me, that latter point is the inescapable beginning for any discussion of her campaign. I suspect this is true for a lot of Dems, which is also why I suspect Drum is wrong about the primaries. There may be alternate universes where a polarizing, liberal, woman senator from NY can get elected to be a wartime president, but I won't believe I'm actually living in that universe until I wake up fully immersed in it. Even then, I'd probably assume that I developed some sudden psychotic disorder that made me unable to properly perceive reality ("Bush-polar"?).
Hillary's little roll out yesterday also got some buzz concerning her dropping the usual press conference for a video statement to the nation. My cringe moment? Calling for a national "discussion" and "dialogue" on our problems. Ugh. I could tolerate this kind of sappiness from the Big Dog, probably because I always felt I knew who he was and where he stood. (Maybe, also b/c he's a man, and I'm all about the double standards.) From HRC it comes across as unforgiveable mushmouthedness. I don't want a conversation. I want leadership. If I don't like your ideas, I will tell you--loudly. I don't need an invite to the rap session from a wannabe theapist-in-chief.
posted by tenaciousmcd @ 11:43 AM
7 Comments:
I have the same emotional/visceral response to Hillary as TenaciousMcD, so it can't be his chauvinism talking. Her voice actually is distinctly unpleasant to my ears. And I don't want to have a "conversation" with her.
But thinking of her political prospects more generally, she is simply devoid of charisma. My suspicion is that the ceiling of her support is what we see in the polls right now. Heaven forfend us if she's able to get through the primaries successfully. Clearly, she's convinced a lot of Democratic party donors and operatives that she's viable. I have no idea how.
She will be subjected to the most debilitating and destructive media narratives. Fineman's "Miss Perfect" story line is simply the most gentle version of the character portrait of Hillary as relentless, soulless, vicious power -seeker. No candidate can overcome this media frame, and for her it is inevitable.
As a personal matter, Hillary also represents the Democratic establishment that sold out the country on Iraq. She did not speak the truth as she knew it when it most mattered, and we all know why she didn't: crass political opportunism and calculation. I don't want anyone involved with that, unless they have repented with sack cloth and ashes. And even then I'm suspicious of their flawed leadership character.
I can only hope that Democrats won't be so STUPID as to choose her.
Oddly enough, I probably like Hillary better than you do, Frances. After all, I have little gripe with Democratic centrism aside from its early fecklessness over Iraq, and I can certainly "understand" why that happened, at least from a political perspective: no one predicted the future well, and so Dems hunkered down and tried to avoid big losses, especially Dems in tough districts/states or with Pres ambitions. I also see enough reminders of my own mother in HRC (ambitious, religious, highly-educated, northern-born, liberal, career women married to southern charmers/natural leaders) to sympathize with her public personna, which obviously attempts to balance contradictory impulses and constraints in ways the men need not.
But at some point for HRC that personna became a cage, and it makes her, to me at least, a very unappealing general election candidate. She's really pitching to the MSM--the Broders and Russerts--who I can't much stand anymore. There is a woman I'd really love to see in the race, and for whom I would vote in a second: Madeleine Allbright. Too bad she's foreign born & ineligible.
One other gripe: It is condescending for a candidate for president of the United States to invite potential supporters to "chat."
How stupid does she think we are? The US is a country of 300 million people. Don't pretend that we can all sit down together on a flowery living room couch to develop public policy.
Watching the tv coverage this morning I realized that this presidential primary process is going to be a lot more painful than I'd expected.
Another sure sign that some on the right at least know that Hilliary is unelectable is that Rupert Murdoch has given her his support. Even his NY Post is fawning all over her. Surely the ever conservative Murdoch doesn't really want her to be elected and he's only hoping that she gets the nomination so a conservative Republican will win.
I agree with dk that the GOP primary is extraordinarily interesting, and it's getting very little attention from the media. As usual, the beltway journalists are behind the curve on McCain. I don't think they've begun to absorb the damage that Iraq is doing to his candidacy. Watching McCain over the past few weeks, he has lost all his verve and humor, all his forthrightness. He is a shadow of his former self.
Yes, I think Mike Huckabee is probably the most formidable GOP candidate. He is religiously orthodox (unlike Romney), and also a solid social conservative (unlike Guiliani). He's a governor with things to claim credit for. He's generally nice. He lost all that weight - great human interest angle for the unaffilitated independent, especially for women. He bears no culpability for Iraq, but he has not betrayed his party leader on the issue. He could unite the right and the mainstream in the party. He's the dark horse who could follow in the Clinton footsteps - from Arkansas to the head of his party.
Huckabee comes across as the GOP Jimmy Carter. I can't imagine he'll fly in our era of conservative testerone chic, but stranger things have happened.
Otherwise, I basically agree with all the analysis above. Amazing that no one in the press has picked up on the absolute imlosion of the GOP field. Rudy's a non-starter, and the other "leaders", McCain and Romney, are currently flaming out (a bad pun in Mitt's case). I do wonder about Brownback. He's the stealth guy here: solid rightist cred, plausibly masculine, heartland state, but steering to the LEFT on the war. How about that for positioning?
Still, my money's on McCain finding a way to correct his ship. The GOP are royalists, almost always nominating the heir apparent, despite reservations. And he's still got a good personal story and electable personality. The surge narrative hurts him, but that may be a short-term effect that dissipates once current mauevering plays out.
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