Here is a good piece from Huffington Post , a Hillary supporter (Shaun Jacob Halper) disappointed that Hillary didn’t take on the anti-Hillary rightwing b.s. that has always dogged her. Just running as the inevitable nominee and not telling a more personal story of who she is was a big mistake. I always heard the 35 years fighting for you line but never heard what it was all about. From the story in Huff Post.
I am certainly not the first to point out that Hillary’s career, reputation, and personality were swiftboated by an interminable deluge of right-wing attacks and a decades-long cultural embrace of Hillary-hating — a phenomenon that is irrational, self-contradictory, and self-sustaining (if you are new to the lingo, Stanley Fish aptly summarizes the egregious cultural practice in two of his latest NY Times columns and its hundreds of responses). But it was Hillary — and Hillary alone — who had the opportunity and the ability to uproot and eradicate this right-wing monster once and for all.
She didn’t and, as a result, she will lose the primary.
Since the start of her run, Hillary has failed to systematically address the charges leveled by Hillary-haters or confront the phenomenon of Hillary-hating generally. During the primary, when confronted with a Hillary-hating issue — likeability, triangulation, ambition, poll-addiction, personality, secrecy — Hillary would laugh indifferently with her now notoriously vilified cackle. Otherwise, whatever listless gestures she attempted spoke only to a narrative of self-pity (tears in New Hampshire) or overconfidence (her sardonic retort during a debate). Early in the campaign, a series of commercial testimonials titled “The Hillary I Know” were launched to offer a competing narrative: why were these abandoned? The threat of Hilary-hatred as a cultural phenomenon was never really taken seriously.
After the New Hampshire comeback, I had hoped that this pervasive obstacle to her nomination would finally be confronted. It was a false hope. Hillary’s tears and her discovery of a new voice were not the first reparative gestures of a new systemic attack, but were lucky breaks that scored a local victory in the Northeast. The tactics were soon aborted and they were never embraced as the winning strategy they could have been.
A lot of people will be blaming Mark Penn for this failure but I think its Hillary’s own inability to open up that was the real problem. She doesn’t want to make it about her self and thus people are allowed to think the worst about her -myself included sadly.
anthony says
…that assuming the worst about somebody only because she chooses to behave professionally and not honor small minded spitefullness with a response is very, very sad.
justice4all says
to make it “not about her self?” Yeah – it’s a life long tendency for for many women to put other things first. What a shock. It’s a traditional gender role message that women are given in this culture. Actually lanugo, I’m just busting your chops. You’ve been such a smug little bugger that that I thought I’d toss some women’s studies standards at you.
<
p>If you get a chance, read Ellen Goodman’s article today. She had her own take on the race. She discussed how the women’s movement had allowed men to transform the way they lead by picking up what had originally been defined as “female” traits, and utilizing a “compassionate and collaborative style.”
<
p>Ellen also provided this quote, which I think explains why only 3% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies are female:
<
p>
<
p>Le coup de gras?
<
p>
<
p>Oh – and this:
<
p>
<
p>I think no matter what – Hillary was “damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t.” (source of this phrase unknown”
lanugo says
I think Hillary maybe did feel the need to put the emphasis on tough, maybe in some way overcompensating for her gender in trying to show she could be as strong as a man – thus her penchant for sabre rattling on national security issues.
<
p>But, I think she was wrong to do so, certainly in the primaries when tough aligned her policies with Bush and made her seem like she was going to follow the same tack in foreign affairs.
<
p>But, I think Hillary could have broken out of these so-called chains. She could have appealed to people’s desire for leadership while showing a bit of her inner core. That she couldn’t or didn’t try is testament to her own limits as a person and candidate. Ultimately, I think she has proven over the years how tough she is. Her problem was she thought she had to keep proving it and in so doing boxed herself into a corner.