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. 

The View From El Paso

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.

Hillary Is Losing Women

I don't think the point is that women are not responding to her the way African-American voters are responding to Obama—though that is true—but that no demographic is responding to her as it is to him. The guy won every income group, the Catholic swing-voters everybody said he'd have trouble with, independents by a mile, and Latinos. Which is a blow to identity politics but not, as I see it, to women; on the contrary, isn't it a testament to how far we've come that just because she is a woman doesn't mean she's automatically our woman? Yesterday, when a friend of mine said she didn't understand how any woman could decide not to support Hillary, all I could think was that that made no more sense to me than if she'd said she didn't understand not voting for the white person.

They Shoot Plus Sizes, Don't They?

Hillary's Girls Pass the Kleenex and Save the Day

Back when that book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten came out, I thought about how everything I needed to know I learned in my 92 years of dating. And as it turns out, those lessons hold up pretty well in political life, too, in that chemistry and timing trump reason and a common goal more often than we'd like to admit.

Political life does not always mirror the real thing, though: If New Hampshire were an employer and Hillary Clinton a job candidate, she would have been out of contention the minute her eyes filled with tears during the interview. As those Sex and the City women (thank you, Trailhead) and every flesh-and-blood XX knows, men can throw phones and wastebaskets across the office and that's cool, but a woman who lets a tear fall is toast.

Which really might explain - sorry, but the instant Conventional Wisdom does occasionally get it right -- why women who could relate rode to Clinton's rescue last night. In future contests, I'm guessing Obama will refrain from gratuitous, way-beneath-him swipes like "You're likeable enough, Hillary.'' But that still leaves her with the same problem Al Gore had in 2000: What about Bill?

Re: The NYT and the Washington Post get their hair done

For what it's worth, I think everyone will be heading over to a NASCAR race, but only after they get their immunizations.

We can only wonder what other cliches we'll be subjected to. How long before someone visits the Second Wives' Club to see if the gals are voting for Giuliani or Thompson?  

The NYT and the Washington Post get their hair done

On Sunday, the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post went to the hair salon. Because this is where black women hang out--in particular, black women who vote in South Carolina. As both papers tell us once they've gotten past the scene setting, African American women make up 29 percent of the state's Democratic primary voters. Which makes them "a crucial constituency" in this early primary state (NYT). "Seriously, we have to go where the voters are." (WaPo, quoting Clinton's state director).

There's nothing wrong with this, exactly--cliches are cliches because they have some truth to them. So is it just the double coverage that makes the pieces seem sudsy? To be sure, there's a serious and sad theme in both of them: Black women are reluctant to support Obama because they doubt that a black man could become president, and because they fear for his safety if he were to be elected. That may help explain why Hillary is polling ahead of Obama among black women, at least according to the Washington Post. (The Post article, by Krissa Williams, cites a recent Post-ABC poll showing black women supporting Clinton over Obama 54 percent to 35 percent. The Times article, by Katherine Seelye, cites a poly sci professor who says that black women are equally divided between the two, and that a third are still undecided. My conclusion: It's early yet, the numbers are shifting around, and no one really knows.)

Here's what bothers me, even though it seems inevitable: In both articles, the central question is whether black women will vote their gender or their race. As Williams puts it explicitly, "Do you identify with Obama because he's black or Clinton because she's a woman?" This framing I find depressing. I know, I know, race and gender matter in politics. And I also know that this is the first presidential election in which a woman and a black man have a real crack at winning the nomination. And yet it irks me that no one is going to head over to the cliche place in South Carolina where white men hang out (the gym? Home Depot? a NASCAR race?) and ask them whether they're voting for Clinton because she's white or Obama because he's a man. The essentializing only applies selectively.

 Or maybe it's all about the thrill of hot irons and hair weaves.