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The XX Factor entered a new medium this morning: video! Watch here as Emily Bazelon, Dahlia Lithwick, and Melinda Henneberger talk about what the results from the Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont primaries mean for Hillary Clinton.
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I spent the night trying and failing to find a caucus to eavesdrop on here in El Paso. A volunteer at Hillary's headquarters downtown gave me a bum steer, and I found myself at an empty courthouse. Instead, I headed to a Chili's near a caucus center. The mood around 8 p.m. was a bit punchy. Caucus-goers had just begun to trickle in. A Latino Obama supporter—a county courthouse clerk—ordered nachos and asked the bartender to change the TV from basketball to CNN. He was excited to find that Obama was ahead. He had been a supporter of the Clintons, he told me, but witnessing the past few weeks' of "mudslinging" from Hlilary—"that turned me off," he said, as had his growing sense that Hillary's policies were shaped by special-interest groups. Giddily, he talked about how many Obama signs he'd seen by polling places during the day. "El Paso isn't usually real big on voting," he said, "but we had huge turnout at the courthouse and then at the caucus." Listening to him talk, two young female Chili's employees defended Hillary. "I like her resistance to mandatory testing," a young blonde named Sarah told me. Conversation turned to the rumors that Obama was Muslim. Both women said they thought it was possible Obama was not Christian at all but a secret agent of Islam. "You always hear rumors about them working from the inside out," Sarah told me.
Around 9 p.m., I headed over to Frankie's, a pool hall/entertainment center where Obama supporters had been told to gather to watch the returns on MSNBC. About 20 people were there when I arrived—among them, two interracial couples, a few attractive young women, and a lone young Latino man—but the place steadily filled up. The news wasn't looking good for Obama, and the edge of excitement ebbed: With some 50 percent of the votes counted, Clinton had overtaken Obama. Jessica, a psychology Ph.D. who had been a precinct captain, said that her caucus had gone for Clinton. Berto, the lone Latino man, said his precinct had gone 42-5 for Hillary. More food and beer was ordered. Jessica explained to me why she had become a volunteer for Obama, and what she said stood in stark contrast to the meme that Obama inspires voters by purveying vague hopes. Back in January, she told me, she had read a "blue book" outlining the specifics of Obama's health-care plan and more. After reading about Hillary's, she was convinced his was smarter. "I know he takes flak for not covering everyone. But we need to think sensibly about what we can accomplish."
As we sat there, it became clearer that Hillary was likely to take Texas—even though everyone was unsure about how and when the caucus votes would be counted. (Several caucuses continued until nearly 9 p.m., if not later.) During Hillary's speech from Ohio, groans rang out at the words "when that phone rings at 3 in the morning ..." But the mood brightened when Obama spoke—especially when he talked about focusing on restoring America's reputation around the world.
Just now, MSNBC has projected that Hillary would take Texas. So the race continues.
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Meghan and Hanna, you're helping me put my finger on what's been bothering me this week. It's the crying gender wolf—baking real instances of sexism in the same pie as the made-up slights, or even the nonslights. Example from the Post story today: Obama pulling out HIllary's chair for her at the debates gets cast as a way to take power away from her, as opposed to simple courtesy or a touch of chivalry. The problem with this is the usual crying-wolf problem: It devalues the actual problem of sexism that Hillary confronts, and it's just freaking wearisome. John Dickerson has made the point (in the context of McCain's response to the NYT's Vicki Iseman story) that a candidate can only protest that he or she is getting treated unfairly so many times before it starts to wear thin. There's the skillful taking of umbrage, and then there's whingeing. Also, the even less attractive my-victimization-is-worse-than-your-victimization—see the trotting out of sexism "is the worst of the -isms." As if that is a competition we really need to have.
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It's a cool, bright morning here in West Texas. Folks in Marfa, Texas, where I've paused en route to El Paso, are out voting and preparing to caucus. Most of the people I've talked to have already voted—Texas offers early voting. Most are planning to caucus later tonight. The Texas primary—as everyone's been saying—is unusual in that voters can both vote and caucus if they show up at the evening caucuses with a voter-registration slip. Effectively, your vote can be counted twice. This has come to be known as the "Texas two-step." Some people here are worried about another form of two-stepping, you might say: As Politico flagged earlier this week, the Dallas Morning News apparently got a peek at Clinton's "training materials," which apparently tell volunteers, "DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles."
I've been a Hillary defender on this blog in the past—and I'm the first to be frustrated by the latent sexism that has permeated so much of the election coverage. But I find it strange that the sexism meme is hitting a high now—and that CNN spent so much time this morning analyzing their so-called "fairness" to Hillary. Over the past few weeks, Hillary has trotted out all sorts of hardball tactics—the "Shame on You" moment; the satirical imitation of Obama; these reported caucus shenanigans; and, last but not least, the gender card, which she has used without shame, most notably (and ineffectively) in the Ohio debate, where she whined that she "always" got the first question. The problem with playing the victim and crying gender as frequently as she's been doing of late is that it degrades the power of that claim for the rest of us. She wants to be a leader. She can't worry every time a knock comes that it's a sexist one. I wish I could say I felt that she's just calling it where she sees it—which I'd be the first to defend. But watching the vagaries of the campaign these last few days, I've had the uneasy sense that she's stressing the hardships of being a woman as a cheap campaign strategy. I hope I'm wrong.
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Today, the front page of the Washington Post has another installment in the "feminists are pissed" series dominating the press (and soon to dominate more if Hillary loses today). They call her a witch, a hag, an old bimbo, say the leaders of NOW. They are threatened by her power. Once again, I can't relate, particularly since the NOW leaders never even consider the possibility that people simply may not like her. But one thought did strike me in reading this. One of the NOW leaders tells the story that she was wearing a Hillary sticker in a hotel and a man came up to her and said, "Ah, come on. A woman's place is in the kitchen." I'm not sure I believe the story, but let's say it's true. Maybe what it means is this: There are people who still believe this. When I travel around conservative Christian circles, it's commonly held that a woman's place is not in leadership. This is true even for modern, highly educated conservative evangelicals. In my book, I focus on a couple of highly successful young career-minded women who are facing this dilemma—work or cede your life to your new husband and family. Basically, they all choose the latter. This makes this "ism" different from "racism." No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman's place is fundamentally still in the kitchen. One may disagree, but is this the same as sexism?
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