The XX Factor: What women really think.

Hillary's Vision Quest and the Great Schism

Amen (so to speak), Dahlia and Melinda. My quick take-away was this: Hillary Clinton is trying to create an equation between her campaign and a kind of religious quest. She told her supporters that every vote of theirs was a "prayer." (So votes for Obama were what? Votes for the devil?) She implied that her supporters were "invisible" to everyone else. She stressed her dedication to public service. Softening her voice, she said she just wants what she had "always wanted," namely, to help fix health care and end the war. (Never mind that she voted for the war.) She animated the cultish, irrational mob impulse in her supporters. (It's no accident that one of the first "invisible" voters she mentioned was a nurse.) Then she said: "I want to hear from you. I hope you'll go to my web site HillaryClinton.com and. share your thoughts with me .... and in the coming days I'll be consulting with advisers and party learders to determine how to move forward."

Now, after that speech, how many supporters are really going to log in to her message boards and urge, "Bow out gracefully, Hill"? No; she's preparing us for the Great Schism. The moment when the Democratic Party, like the Catholic Church once did, breaks into two camps that can't reconcile their values.

Hillary's right, in a sense, that the way we elect our party nominees is a little ... complex. Even flawed. Sure. That's open for debate. But not WHILE the election is taking place. For better or for worse, we don't rewrite the rules midgame in American politics. Or at least we don't do that most of the time. And that's always been what made American democracy robust. The primary system is one the United States has followed for a long time. And Clinton doesn't get to change the rules midelection simply because they don't favor her. So I find it disingenuous—deeply, deeply disingenuous—that she claimed last night she really cares about "the deepest values of our party." Ours is a system of representative democracy. You don't get to throw a temper tantrum just because "your vote" wasn't "heard." After all, every time there is an election, some voters feel remorse that their candidates didn't win. If each of those candidates stirred up their supporters to the point where, as Dahlia put it, they looked ready to set off small brushfires, we'd be living in a much more violent country.

So you know what, Hillary? The deepest values of the party would suggest that you don't emotionally manipulate those who have less power and less authority than you. They would suggest that you don't stir voters into a moblike frenzy.They would place on you the burden of acting like a representativeup someone who can compromise gracefully, negotiate wisely, and be generous even when the world does not bow to your will. Instead, you're creating a schism within the Democratic Party. If you really think there's a problem with the way primaries are run, take it up after you bow out. 

Was That a Threat or a Promise?

When you call my name, it's like a little prayer/
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there/
In the midnight hour I can feel your power/
Just like a prayer you know I'll take you there

                             —Madonna

OK, so now we know what's on Hillary's iPod. But was Hillary's "Like a Prayer'' speech ("I often felt that every vote was a prayer for our nation,'' she said) a threat or a promise? Was it a ham-handed demand for the No. 2 slot? (Pony up, friend o' mine, if you don't want 18 million angry Democrats on your front lawn by daybreak!) Or was it on the contrary her way of making sure he doesn't offer it to her—if he did so now, he'd look like the sort of person who gives in to blackmail—while also guaranteeing that her supporters are good and mad when he does not offer it to her. (And if it's the latter, she may or may not be on to her own sabotage; the proof that not everything she does is on purpose is her strange insistence on using and reusing that completely discredited battle cry about staying the course. "I'm so proud we stayed the course together,'' she said last night.)

There has never been anything wrong with her decision to stay in the race; it's how she waged war that was at issue. There is nothing wrong with the fact that she did not concede last night, either. But her mouth says unity, and her feet say kick him where it hurts.

Ginger Snaps

Just finished watching Hillary Clinton’s unconcession speech. I guess we should give her credit for the fact that her supporters now look sufficiently angry to set small brushfires.

It would have been hard enough to choke down all the quasi-messianic imagery. (Each vote for her was “like a prayer;” supporters hand her rosaries AND bring her back from the dead.) But the real rhetorical gem tonight was the whole new “invisibility” trope: “None of you is invisible to me!” she vowed. So (subtext): “If I concede, America, you’d go right back to being invisible!” You’d be Tinkerbell!

Clinton did answer one burning question: “What does she want?” She just wants to win the war, turn the economy around, and fix health care. Since we all of us want those things, too, her real desire is actually to be the person who does it. Why doesn’t she just say that?

Nor have I any idea what to make of the call to her supporters to weigh in on her Web site with our own votes for whether she indeed goes on to the next round of Dancing With the Stars . . .

Unfortunately, I kept thinking of that Gilligan’s Island episode in which Ginger acts out an excruciatingly long and melodramatic death scene. You keep thinking her every last gasp is really it. But then she keeps rolling around and twitching because she’s been peeking through her fingers all along and knows you’re still watching.  

Read more XX Factor posts on Hillary Clinton's speech Tuesday night.

Can the Unity Clock Start Running Now, Please?

Hillary was on her game tonight. She looked good. She spoke well. She touched on the groups of voters she feels she owns and the problems of theirs she wants to solve. And, alas, she went from more conciliatory (congratulating Obama) to less (I won the popular vote, the 18 million people who voted for me). Fair enough that she doesn't want to drop out tonight. But couldn't she have done more to start laying the groundwork for unity? Marjorie and Kim have been expressing their doubts lately about how blacks and women can come together after the gibes and elbow-throwing of this campaign. The same question more generally applies to the two halves of the Democratic Party. I'd like to think voters can do some of this on their own, and that the divisions don't run as deep and aren't as full of acrimony as they've seemed lately. But the signals Hillary sends now matter enormously. And tonight, she' s still telling us that who the Democratic nominee is matters more than what he or she does—or, really, whether he or she wins. A friend of my mother's who is a Hillary supporter told an Obama fundraiser recently that she needs time to heal. That will be a lot easier if Hillary starts the clock running. Tenacity is a feminist trait, yes. But a strong woman should also know how to make a gracious exit.