This Classy Lady Is a Champ

I did not watch Hillary’s farewell yesterday. I could not as I was at a church event with no TV to be found. In many ways, I am glad I did not, because after my support of her pretty much since the day Bill left the White House, and the last two years of more defined support: telephone calls, donations, etc., it would have been incredibly painful for me to watch; yes, I may have even shed a tear. I can remember the last time I felt this way politically: it was when Edward Kennedy lost the 1980 nomination to Jimmy Carter. I was sad not only about the loss of a chance for America to experience Sen. Kennedy’s leadership, but also of what I felt was an inability to seize on the political opportunity of a disgraced and befuddled GOP. In hindsight, I was right. What should have been at least 8-12 years of Democratic dominance turned into the rise of Reagan and a new Conservatism that still grips the US today. Ironically, Sen. Kennedy did not recognize Sen. Clinton as today’s version of his 1980 candidate. He too became an opportunist in this year of opportunism seeing Sen. Obama as the best way to perpetuate the Kennedy mystique.

Today I read two seminal articles in the NY Times: one a post-mortem on her campaign; the other a reflection on her farewell speech. It is fitting that the Times provided the eulogy to her campaign as it was the one major media organization that endorsed her and despite some blips never removed that endorsement. Some nuggets from the articles mixed with my own commentary:

The beginning of the end was the night of the Indiana/North Carolina primaries. Obama won N.C. early in the night, but delayed results in Indiana precluded a chance for Hillary to claim victory in prime time. By the time the results rolled in, pundits like Tim Russert had already declared the night a victory for Obama even though Indiana was a state in which Hillary’s own internal polls had her lagging 8 points behind a couple of weeks before the primary.

By now the basic outlines of the cancer that destroyed what was once a campaign of inevitability have been laid out. There were jealousies in the various factions of the Clinton camp; Bill’s team never saw eye-to-eye with Hillary’s team; they were overconfident and ill-prepared for the Obama onslaught.

They did finally pull it together but it was too-little-too-late. They won the last three months of the primaries but it was too late to undo their disastrous February.

At the same time many superdelegates abandoned her including those who owed their political careers to the Clintons including Sen. Richardson (an overlooked fact is that the vast majority of Obama’s advisers were second tier advisers in the Clinton Administration. It does not take much to surmise that once they lost the plum jobs in the Clinton campaign they moved on to the Obama campaign. It also does not require a Ph.D in Political Science to figure out that this is the equivalent of half the coaching staff of a team being hired by its rivals. They know all their old team’s weaknesses. And finally I guess Obama realized that the road of change had to go through the Clinton administration?).

Mark Penn has been cast as the villain in the campaign. But let’s not bury him too early. Yes, he was hated by the rest of the Clinton staff and to say he had a disruptive impact on the campaign would be putting it mildly. But he advocated for an initial, aggressive attack on Obama well ahead of Iowa. Bill supported him on this, but advisers like Harold Ickes won out letting Obama build the crucial momentum that would propel him to take Iowa and leave Hillary without funds at the start of 2008 (almost $100 million spent on a third place finish in Iowa). Ickes ironically thought Hillary would do better in Iowa and than New Hampshire. Penn also pushed for more direct attacks on Rev. Wright. Ultimately Hillary was left with no choice but to get more aggressive and it worked; but again, it was too little-too late.

Bill understandably “boiled with resentment” over the free pass the media gave Obama.

Hillary’s aides correctly saw Howard Dean as more supportive of the Obama campaign. As early as April they challenged him to do something about Florida and Michigan but ultimately the Democratic Party failed its voters. The right solution would have been to re-do both primaries. Instead, they chose the most illogical and unfair solution possible, and the one least rooted in the will of the people it supposedly champions. They wanted to avoid the $20-$30 million cost, but the price they paid in alienating not only 18 million Hillary supporters, but the voters in Florida and Michigan may pose a much higher cost.

Bill Clinton has been cast as another villain. But he was apparently frustrated by a new world of internet-based, 24-7 politics. Apparently he does not even use a Blackberry. But he was tireless in his support of Hillary; so much so that when things looked bleakest, he stepped up his efforts to ensure that Hillary got the highest possible popular vote possible if for nothing else, but to position her best for a VP nod. Apparently one of the most moving parts of her speech was her tribute to Bill. Everyone maligns their marriage, and in terms of their purported fidelity to each other, even if we take everything as true, how different is it than the majority of marriages today. It is different in one significant way – there is clearly love there and perhaps they are unable to show it in conventional ways, but it is a strong bond.

When Bill was asked about Obama’s potential learning curve in the office, Bill candidly admitted that he made many mistakes in his first term, mistakes that were borne out of political naïveté. He fears that Obama may suffer the same mistakes (this is my concern because of the challenges the economy and the war pose coupled with the high expectations on him will raise the risk of failure. And at least Bill had experience as a Governor of a state, Obama’s only leadership experience was with the Harvard Law Review; a lofty organization, yes, but to my knowledge it never waged a war or impacted the economy).

Hillary did not quit because she felt she owed it to her supporters to keep going. If there is any doubt as to this sentiment, see the reactions of her supporters yesterday. Plus she kept on winning; why should a candidate who keeps winning have to quit.

But with each victory came something to blunt the momentum. The day after a crushing victory in WV, Edwards endorses Obama. But Elizabeth Edwards who was always by his side was not there for this endorsement. And yes, her absence did speak volumes. She had grown to like Hillary over the course of the campaign and while she understandably had to deny Hillary’s request to formally endorse her, her absence was a virtual endorsement.

Hillary supporters, particularly women, saw the unfairness in how Hillary’s campaign was treated. The President of Emily’s List urged her to push on. One superdelegate who switched to Obama was besieged by protesters calling him a traitor.

She was not even allowed to back out on her own terms. One would think a candidate who secured an unprecedented 18 million votes would have at least been accorded that. But yet party leaders pressured her to drop out ASAP. And she did. Penn urged her to hold out and push for concessions from Obama; she did not hold out; nor did she push for any concessions. Instead she went out with a class; a class she displayed all through the campaign, but a class no one would allow themselves to see.

I hope I am wrong about Obama. I will support him in the main election. We need a Democrat to put America back on track and undo the horrors of the last 8 years. And I hope one day, America rectifies this wrong and elects Hillary President. As I could never understand why a woman or minority would ever vote Republican, I am unable to understand how a woman could not support Hillary, even African-American women. Yes, I know Obama was a minority candidate. But he did not run as an African-American. Until Rev. Wright forced his hand, race did not enter into his campaign. And he could afford to do so because he was only half African-American by blood and appearance, and he spent very little of his pre-collegiate life in the mainland US. He then went to Columbia and Harvard. Hardly the lingering pools of racism. He is not the Rev. Jesse Jackson and he is not the Rev. Al Sharpton. And because he is not, because he does not look like them, sound like them, or advocate the issues they advocate, he is electable. Ironically, the most racism he may face in his life is the upcoming general election.
Hillary showed how much higher the ceiling is for women. The following story is telling of how far women still have to go. Before Memorial Day, a Clinton aide, who I am sure had many pressing issues to deal with, had to go to People Magazine (a magazine with a huge female subscriber base) to try and convince them to that Bill did not say Chelsea “bawled” after Hillary’s Iowa loss. The fact that this is still relevant; that women cannot cry in a man’s realm unless they have previously demonstrated their strength, and even then it is termed “contrived” demonstrates that women still have far to go. As I have said before, those who malign Hillary should think of their daughters or other women in their lives when they make such statements and ask if the criticism is based on the substance of the person Hillary is, or on her gender and her refusal to be anything but a strong woman. A part of me did die yesterday, the part that hoped for a better America. Maybe Obama can still deliver that, and I hope he can. But the most qualified and experienced candidate lost, and not for the right reasons. I hope one day this wrong will be righted.