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Meghan: I hadn't noticed that in his opening catalogue of binary-distinctions-beyond-which-we-must-move, Obama didn't mention that most primal of all binaries: men and women! That does seem like an extraordinary omission, one that I'd almost think was an accidentally skipped line (was he reading from a teleprompter there in Grant Park?) if it weren't for the ultra-precise and carefully calibrated delivery of the entire speech. Obviously Obama is, ideologically speaking, a feminist, but it's odd that rift in the electorate--which defined his primary campaign as much as any other factor--didn't spring more immediately to mind.
But how incredible that you got to be standing in Grant Park with all the other men and women, blacks and whites, gays and straights, etc., on that historic night. The frisson of awed patriotism you describe is exactly the mood evoked by this Whitman quote, from Leaves of Grass, sent to me the morning of election day by a friend who has a way of finding the perfect poem for every occasion:
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:
This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating - America's choosing day...
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Did anyone else notice that Obama’s victory speech last night (which started out a little stiff and stump-speech-y, I thought, then soared to the firmament with that Ann Nixon Cooper kicker) never mentioned Hillary Clinton? Believe me, this isn't PUMA resentment speaking—he was by no means obligated to mention the woman who ran a fierce, interminable, and at times dirty campaign against him, and he may well have had good political reasons for not doing so. I just don’t understand what those reasons were. After all, it was a speech about getting past the old resentments and limitations, and as Obama pointed out, the 106-year-old Cooper was born disenfranchised for two reasons: She was black and a woman. After the rhetorical valentine he'd just sent out to McCain, who spent the past two months framing him as a shady, dangerously naive socialist, why not reach out to Hillary supporters with an acknowledgement of the politician who tempered his campaigning steel in the primaries? Was it just a matter of keeping any hint of old-school Clinton politics at bay?
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My beloved Liz Lemon—er, I mean Tina Fey—isn't the only one suggesting that Sarah Palin's focus has shifted from 2008 to 2012. Today, trying get a jump on the post-election story before the polls even open, much less close, a host of politicos are placing their bets over who will emerge from the broken GOP as the next to be (unofficially) crowned party leader.
When John McCain chose his running mate, he was rightfully lambasted as cynical for passing over experienced insider men for an accessible outsider woman. In the end, he was right on one count: that a swath of the American public—though one which perhaps may not be wide enough to elect him tomorrow—felt so disenfranchised by the people who hold power in this country that they would line up behind someone who reflected and could articulate their own proud feelings of ordinariness. (This profound cultural conflict—rooted deep in issues of education and economics—will require far more systemic thinking than the fuzzy feeling of "unity" Obama hopes to usher in tomorrow and beyond.) Where McCain may have been wrong—and this is big—was in his perception of this election as a game of identity politics.
People have talked plenty about whether Obama is a post-race candidate for a post-race America. I've generally taken issue with that notion—and should he be elected, my heart positively swells with the notion of the descendant of slaves raising her children inside the White House. But by the same flawed token, did Sarah Palin become a post-gender candidate for a post-gender America? Of course, Palin has certainly worked her gender in this race: from that flirty wink and sky-high Manolos to her uber-mom positioning. But like Obama's race hasn't been the totalizing meta-narrative of his candidacy, neither has Palin's gender, and just as this hasn't been an election year for single issue voters, it hasn't been one for single-identity ones either, despite what pundits may have predicted from the outset. We entered this race all aflutter about our first female presidential candidate. We're ending it considering the next one with hardly a shrug about her gender.
While I am hardly a Palin fan, and for myriad reasons shudder to imagine how she might develop with the next four years to study up, the fact that neither her supporters nor her detractors seemed to make a big deal about a female commander in chief (remember those days?) suggests that in unexpected ways, we've come a long way during this long march to Election Day.
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In Rachael's battle between who is speaking more truth to power--Elaine Lafferty or Christopher Buckley--I think the real winner may be Tina Brown. Both articles by Lafferty and Buckley, which have inspired a lot of Web chatter, appeared in Brown's new Web site, the Daily Beast (named after the news outlet in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.) Brown, of course, famously saved or ruined The New Yorker, depending on your point of view, in the early 1990s, after she created the still-successful formula for Vanity Fair. I worked at The New Yorker, briefly, during her reign and was among those who felt she was often unfairly maligned because of her sex. Rosa's insight--that pretty women are typically more successful than their less attractive counterparts but also punished more harshly when they fail--seemed to apply a lot to Brown at the time and may explain why she was eventually drawn to the subject of Diana, Princess of Wales (and is now working on a book about Hillary and Bill). In fact, many of the writers that define the current New Yorker are ones Brown hired and first brought to national prominence: among them, Lawrence Wright, Anthony Lane, John Cassidy, Malcolm Gladwell, Phillip Gourevitch, Larissa MacFarquhar, and David Remnick himself (who became her successor). One of my personal favorites of Brown's discoveries was Nancy Franklin, then a staff editor at the magazine. Previous male bosses had overlooked Franklin's considerable talents. Brown, however, saw a natural wit and born writer and promoted Franklin to critic, a post she still winningly occupies.
Brown had a keen appreciation of the sexism that surrounded her--especially the ways women were expected to work like dogs (as Brown did) while many of the men got to lounge around being "intellectuals." Upon learning I grew up in Texas, she once joked to me that she loved Texas men because unlike most of her male literary peers in New York, they were still man enough to flirt with her. In today's political vernacular, Texas men were "dudes," unintimidated by a woman who is both attractive and powerful. Brown's quip offered a brief glimpse into how sexually isolating it can be to be a fiercely intelligent woman. (I think this explains, in part, why otherwise seemingly smart women, especially of Hillary's generation, sometimes ended up with the Bills of the world: Bill was probably the first guy sexually acquisitive enough not to be put off by Hillary's own brains and star power.) I wonder if, at the Daily Beast, Brown hasn't found her natural home. She's surrounded by a younger generation of web-savvy male and female editors more used to smart, assertive women, and she always did love the outrageous, counterintuitive piece on which blogs depend. I, for one, am glad to have her back, mixing it up.
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I'm trying to get work done on something else—a piece of writing and thinking not related to the Alaskan body-snatcher who seems to have invaded our collective brain—but my mind keeps returning to the trivial campaign flap of the day, this flurry of feigned outrage about "lipstick on a pig." Rachael's right that the Obama campaign's unfortunate choice of this phrase to describe the cynical repackaging of John McCain's economic plan opens the Dems up to charges of sexism. But I honestly can't decide: Is the use of the phrase, even if it does include a veiled jab at Palin, really sexist? After all, this is a woman who, in a much-praised convention speech (now being endlessly repeated on the stump) referred to herself as a "pit bull with lipstick." Isn't Obama's repurposing of a related metaphor just pointing out that, beneath that lipstick, the emperor's pit bull has no clothes?
As is being widely blogged today, McCain used the same figure of speech to deride Hillary's health care plan back in May. (The Christian Science Monitor reports that Dick Cheney also used it to demean Kerry's war record in 2004, and that Obama used it earlier in the campaign to criticize Bush's Iraq policy.) As far as I can recall, the Clinton campaign, which was never slow to seize upon opportunities for umbrage, let the phrase pass unnoticed (if anyone has a clip to refute that claim, please send along). Then again, McCain did preface his comparison with the sentence "I don't like to use this term." Why not? What would his disclaimer mean, if not that the phrase was somehow offensive to Hillary?
Pigs and pit bulls: two animals popularly considered to be unpleasant (though both can actually make smart and loving pets!), both repackaged with a slapped-on coat of Revlon (personally, I like Cherries in the Glow). The difference, of course, is that the pit-bull joke puts an admirable spin on the image of the dolled-up beast: Pit bulls are to be admired for their toughness and tenacity (and lipstick only makes them cuter!) while a pig is just a pig, cosmetics or no. What do the rest of you XX-ers think: If the Hillary campaign had cried sexism over the same porcine imagery, would you have given it more or less credence? And would you rather compare yourself to a dog, or have someone else compare your ideas to a pig?
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It is tempting to believe that Hillary seemed so relaxed, and confident, and generous this afternoon because she has finally accepted her place. And that place is, once again, second to a giant of male charisma. But this would be insulting, and also not true. I think she projected such calm certainty in her bowing out speech because she is at her best out of combat. When the white shirt is out, she can put her demons to rest and, for the most part, let go of the enemies-under-every-rock view that seems to always darken her mood.
If this had been her hello instead of her goodbye I might have felt more enthusiasm for her, or at least affection. She opened on a historic note, mentioning the little girls who now understand that "we can be whatever we want to be." She placed her candidacy in a string of civil rights victories. She mentioned the 50—50!—women who have orbited the Earth.* It's not merely that she cheerfully checked the boxes all the sour pundits drew for her—enthusiastic, repeated endorsements of Obama, calls for Democratic unity. It's that she finally accepted her role as a pathbreaker for women, and not the victim of constant attacks.
Yes, there were some uh-oh moments. The digression about "barriers" and "biases" that went on a little too long. The weird metaphor of her supporters as 18 million shards of glass chipping off the glass ceiling. But for the most part, she hit the notes Meghan was complaining had been missing from her candidacy.
Yes, the female Hillary and Obama supporters will be fighting it out for some time. But with this graceful exit, she allowed the larger conversation to move on. After her speech I was listening to conservative talk radio—in this case the talk show hosted by Richard Land, the enlightened Southern Baptist leader. He is obviously no Obama supporter but he could not help but describe his nomination as the symbol of the greatness of America, and how far we have come. This could stem from conservatives' reluctance to hit hard at a black man (as Peggy Noonas argues) Or it could be genuine. Either way, it can't be bad for the Democrats.
Read more XX Factor posts about Hillary's exit.
*Correction, June 9: The post originally said that 50 women had orbited space.
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So this is what it's come to: the Lone Gunman strategy. It's no secret that Hillary Clinton has been hoping for a colossal misstep by Barack Obama, or a damaging revelation, to end his candidacy, leaving her the last woman standing. But the satisfying irony would be that Clinton has made the ultimate in political blunders by voicing the possibility of the assassination of her opponent. It's chilling, the cool, uninflected way she casually brings up what she calls the "historic fact" that Bobby Kennedy was murdered in June—before the end of the primary season, so thank goodness Hubert Humphrey hadn't withdrawn prematurely! Later, when forced to apologize, she explained that long primary seasons often run into June, as her own husband's did, and anyway the Kennedys have been on her mind because of the brain tumor diagnosis of Ted Kennedy (take note: Voodoo dolls really do work). This is garbage both as history and self-explanation. In 1968 the presidential primaries started in March; and in his first presidential race, Bill Clinton had effectively won the nomination in April. As for the Kennedy-on-the-mind excuse, Hillary made the same assassination argument to Time magazine in March, before Sen. Kennedy's diagnosis (isn't it funny that this wasn't picked up then).
I don't like the game of gotcha, in which every ill-phrased remark is grounds for ending a candidacy. But recently Clinton has been making a string of offensive statements, from saying "hardworking white Americans" support her and not Obama, to comparing her effort to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan to the civil-rights marchers beaten in Selma, Ala. But calling forth the forces of madness to give her the presidency—please, let her end the madness of her campaign.
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We have reached the moment of the endless military metaphor—the image of one lone warrior steeling herself against the tsunami of enemy forces—which, as any Hillary watcher knows, marks the beginning of the end. Yesterday, in the front-page New York Times story about Hillary and the gender wars, Jodi Kantor let on that Hillary had declined to be interviewed earlier about gender dynamics in the race because it would be "impossible for her to address in a frank way." This implied some deeper, darker truth she would share with the American public when the time was right. Yesterday, in Maysville, Ky., she broke her silence. Instead of letting Ferraro speak for her, Hillary said it herself: "It's been deeply offensive to millions of women"—"It" being the "sexist" pundits, the lewd t-shirts, the "Iron my shirt" moron (who turned out to be the best thing that's happened to Hillary). The sexism is "more respectable," "more accepted," than, say, other unmentioned "isms," she went on, and then on again: The press shrugs at the "incredible vitriol" engendered by the "misogynists."
Ah, bitter, contented Hillary. We have finally come back around to where we started. After the weeping Hillary, the gun-toting Hillary, the race baiting Hillary, now we finally have a Hillary we recognize. Back in the Clinton years, Joe Klein used to write how Hillary was all purposeful and aglow when her husband was discovered to be cheating, because it restored her to the central, aggrieved position where she was most herself. This suggests that for the next 24 hours, or perhaps two weeks, we will get the very best of Hillary: alive, comfortable, warm and toasty and angry all at the same time. She will be our Dolly Parton, our Oprah, our Artemis, our Thelma and Louise: the "avenging angel," as Kantor put it, for millions of American women who have been wronged in some way. We, the women of the press, will be held to feel guilty, responsible, nostalgic, elitist. We will somehow have to explain ourselves. Anyone want to go first?
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A question for all of you: At what point does it become socially acceptable to admit that one is no longer interested in the Democratic primary? And at what point will newspapers stop treating the subject as if it should still be the focus of national attention? I rather thought we had passed this juncture a month ago when Nora Ephron, speaking for millions, described the primary as an "unending last episode of Survivor. They're eating rats and they're frying bugs and they're frying rats and they're eating buts; no one is ever going to get off the island and I can't take it anymore."
And yet it goes on: We've now had the Rev. Wright scandal not once, but twice. We've now had major newspaper and political blog coverage of the Guam primary, where the Hillary campaign declared that their candidate had "historic ties" to the island, Obama won by seven votes, and an apparently astonishing 4,500 people turned out for the election. The same observations about both candidates get recycled in different ways, to the point at which it's not worth reading the newspaper anymore.
The truth is that there wasn't—let's face it—that much new that we were ever going to learn about Hillary Clinton during this campaign: We already know more intimate details about her life than most of us know about most of our best friends. The excitement of the early part of the primary was learning about Obama and watching him draw even with Hillary. But that moment has passed, and we aren't going to learn anything else about him until we see him debate John McCain. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that one still isn't quite allowed to say any of this in public, as a degree of earnest political involvement is expected, at least from "Slate's women," and other community-spirited folk. Or am I wrong?
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Actually, Emily—didn't Hillary get the idea that it would be OK to complain about her hair from none other than Mike Kinsley himself? Last week, he pointed out (in his Slate column, of course) that male candidates can sleep a whole extra half-hour every night because they don't have to primp. The article was frighteningly similar to Hillary's comments several days later.
Not suggesting Hillary reads Kinsley every week (though who knows!), but I'd be pretty surprised if someone on her staff didn't notice that article. Although it's not Tuzla II (or even another Northern Ireland fib), there was something rather phony about Hillary's out-of-the-blue lament. Would it have occurred to her to complain in public about "the time it takes to get ready," unless an important (male) columnist had not suggested it first?
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I hear you, Hanna, and I've sometimes thought about the downside of success for Hollywood women when their marriages fall apart. Cases in point: Hilary Swank wins an Oscar. She and her husband break up. Reese Witherspoon wins an Oscar. She and her husband break up. These are my only two examples, so perhaps I'm being too simplistic about it. Or do men really have a hard time when their wives are more successful than them? Then again, Brad Pitt doesn't seem to mind living in the shadow of Angelina Jolie (probably not many men would mind living anywhere in the vicinity of her shadow), but the paint hasn't dried yet on that relationship.
And two more examples. Why do even some of the most beautiful women in the world get screwed around on? Cases in point: Halle Berry and Elizabeth Hurley.
And the final case in point: Bill and Hillary Clinton. I think he's going mad that she can run for president this year and he can't ever again!