Wednesday’s political round-up

July 18, 2007

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Elizabeth Edwards caused a surprisingly big stir yesterday, when Salon ran a long interview with John Edwards’ wife about the campaign. Elizabeth raised eyebrows with her comments explaining why her husband would be a better advocate for women than Hillary Clinton: “Look, I’m sympathetic, because when I worked as a lawyer, I was the only woman in these rooms, too, and you want to reassure them you’re as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues. I’m sympathetic — she wants to be commander in chief. But she’s just not as vocal a women’s advocate as I want to see. John is…. I’m not convinced she’d be as good an advocate for women. She needs a rationale greater for her campaign than I’ve heard.”

* With his congressional backers feeling a little anxious, John McCain plans to huddle with his House and Senate supporters this afternoon to dispel questions over the long-term health of his 2008 White House bid [and] to reassure them that he is staying in the race.”

* Hillary Clinton’s campaign will be sending out quite a few DVDs to Iowa Dems over the next week, in which the senator explains her plan to end the war in Iraq. The campaign would not say exactly how many DVDs will be distributed, or how much this endeavor will cost.

* Rudy Giuliani may be a named partner at the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm, but that doesn’t mean the firm’s attorneys are backing the former mayor’s presidential campaign. As the New York Daily News reported, “Nearly one-third of the firm’s attorneys who made a personal contribution to a presidential campaign during the past three months picked a candidate whose name is not on their paychecks, Federal Election Commission records reveal. Four gave to Bill Richardson, three to Barack Obama and one to Christopher Dodd, all Democrats. One backed Giuliani GOP rival Mitt Romney.”

* And in Georgia, former state Sen. Jim Whitehead (R) was expected to cruise to an easy victory in the special election runoff to succeed the late Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.), but in a huge surprise, physician Paul Broun (R) appears to have pulled an upset. With nearly all of the votes counted, Broun led by just 277 votes. It may take a while before someone is declared a winner — Secretary of State Karen Handel said the outcome could be decided by yet-uncounted absentee and provisional ballots.

HONEY! Netflix sent some more movies!
What’ll it be tonight? Shrek 3? Officer and a Gentleman? The Matrix Reloaded? Or Hilary thoughtfully staring out at the screen and earnestly telling us how she’ll get us out of Iraq?

Man, Iowa IS dull.

  • . . . but this will make it less dull. so far all we’ve had are a couple of Obama CDs.

  • I don’t see how another candidate can say this in an artful way… but what especially worries me about Sen. Clinton as POTUS is that she’ll conclude that the way to show her “toughness” is to spend hundreds or thousands of lives, and billions of dollars, getting us into another dumbassed war.

  • American presidents seem to get distinctly more respect in the press only after they’ve invaded something. (Ford – Mayaguez, Reagan – Grenada, etc.)

    What little good news there is in such a situation is that the invasion needn’t be especially bloody or expensive (same examples). Perhaps we’ll eventually grow up a bit.

  • There’s no way Hillary would get us into a huge war like Bush did. She’s a pandering triangulation machine, but she’s a Democrat and the rest of the party would burn her at the stake if she pulled a Bush like that.

    No, the next war will be started by Bush/Cheney and they will leave it for Hillary (or whoever) to clean up.

  • Whoa, what makes you think that, Dajafi?

    Re: Elizabeth Edwards’ comments
    I think a lot of the lack of support for Hillary among women is weird, and it has more to do with the internalized patriarchy, psychological, Catherine Mackinnon stuff than a lot of feminist women who are hesitant to support her are likely to acknowledge. It just always seems that in the abstract, women want a feminist women to crack some heads and make some strides for women, but in the particular, they’ve got some nit-picky complaint about the particular woman (who they’d probably really like if they really knew her) and there seems to be more feeling than rationale behing it- I’m always thinking that maybe it’s that in the back of their heads maybe they want a man to lead (what E. Edwards’ comment reminds me of) and just be able to kick his ass on feminist issues + get a response, or, maybe they feel some kind of jealousy of Hill’s relationship w/ Bill and want her (that is, Bill’s wife) to be more like they think a feminist should be (more like them- less ostensibly conventional, or whatever).

    Maybe feminists will not like that I wrote this because I’m a dude, but, to those people I’d ask they think about if it would make sense if some woman you were willing to listen to said it. Many women say something to the effect they could care less about men’s opinions on women’s issues, but if a good idea is a good idea, it’s totally arbitrary whether it comes from a man or a woman. It doesn’t stop being wise or right just because a male-sexed person said it and not a woman.

  • Sorry that last paragraph of my comment is incidental to the topic, but, it seems like a good thing for me to say and incidental to a lot we discuss, so, I just thought I should fit it in somewhere, sometime.

  • Swan – where did you get your data citing the lack of support by women for Hillary?

    And if it does exist, I think you are taking a big leap to assume that there is some feminist back-stabbing theory involved. Isn’t it possible that women don’t like Hillary’s ideas? It doesn’t have anything to do with jealousy of her relationship with Bill or whether or not we’d like her if we got to know her. (Liking someone personally is not my qualification for voting for that person; see George W. Bush for an example of how well that works)

    And how exactly is Elizabeth Edward’s assessment of Hillary’s work as and advocate for women nit-picky? If Edwards went after her lipstick, hair, wardrobe, then I can understand, but I think you are way off base with this one.

  • I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya’, that Elizabeth Edwards would say that she thinks her husband would be a bigger advocate for women’s issues than Hillary would be.

    That’s really profound and backed by all the facts. After all, didn’t John Edwards say about the most recent women’s issue re reproductive rights, the recent SCOTUS decision re medical procedure, that, “It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.”

    Oh wait, that was Hillary who said and did that.

    But didn’t Hillary say about that very same decision (about the decision better reflecting the swing in public opinion polls regarding that procedure),”While I believe the government should not make these health care decisions for women, I believe they should have the freedom to make them for themselves, this is a very difficult issue for many people, and I think we have to respect that people have different views about this.”

    Oh wait, that was John Edwards who said that.

    Now I’m confused. Elizabeth, could you explain it again for me?

  • Little problem with the premise, Swan: the reason Clinton is pollingso well is almost entirely on the backs of women. Last I saw she has a double-digit gender gap over any other Dem candidate.

    I saw a variety of coverage on the Edwards comments this morning on TV, and all I can say is it must have been a slow news morning waiting for the Iraq vote. As The Sister said (#7), it isn’t like Edwards said something catty or even particularly provacative. She didn’t even say that Clinton would not support “women’s issues.” She merely said that she didn’t think Clinton was an ardent enough advocate and, more to the point, she thought her husband would do a better job of it. As John said when Chris Matthews asked him about it, “I don’t think it is a surprise that my wife supports me.” This is a non-story that the media is trying to turn into a TMZ-quality cat-fight solely for their own (prurient?) interests.

  • Swan – where did you get your data citing the lack of support by women for Hillary?

    No, I didn’t say and I don’t think that women as a demographic don’t seem to support Hillary relative to the proportion of the population they make up, or anything like that. You are misrepresenting my comment. I was talking about anecdotally, when particular women express doubt about Hillary.

    I didn’t say Edwards’ complaint was nit-picky, but it just reminded me off the less substantive complaints, which is why I wanted to examine those complaints that don’t seem genuinely substantive (that is, if Hillary’s the best and most successful feminist, woman leader in elective politics we’ve got in this country- a genuinely good one- why should a liberal publicly cast a shadow on her instead of promoting her if there’s not something else at work). Edwards’ complaint is only an example insofar as it may be counterproductive to feminism for Elizabeth Edwards to go after a real, good feminist woman leader on the basis of her feminist creds, and then say “my husband [a man] is better on feminism than she is.”

    they’ve got some nit-picky complaint about the particular woman . . . want her (that is, Bill’s wife) to be more like they think a feminist should be (more like them- less ostensibly conventional, or whatever).

    By this I meant complaint not about Hillary’s positions on issues affecting women, but the soft factors- popularity contest stuff we’re always saying we don’t want elections to be about- Hill’s history, her lifestyle, and the impression she gives.

    want her . . . to be more like they think a feminist should be (more like them- less ostensibly conventional, or whatever).

    I meant to apply this to her being the president also- not only do I suspect some women may feel like Bill deserved a wife who fit more of their preferred image of a feminist or liberal woman, but also that they’d like the first woman president to fit those kind of factors also. At the risk of beating this to death, I’d just like to say that that’s bad because with people you meet and you know even, your own initial assessments of them based on how they look, what their rep is and how they bear themselves can turn out to be faulty- someone you thought was staid and boring and uptight at first can end up being your closest friend and someone you love. With Hillary, most of us don’t even know her and don’t see her in person regularly- we just see her for seconds or for minutes at a time, on TV, and not only that- we see her in artificial, contrived situations like debates and interviews, not in a regular, “winging it”-type of situation. How unfair is that to write her off just because she doesn’t strike you a certain way, when she’s got such a great record of speaking and fighting for good and for women’s place in the world?

    If my comments seem unfair, understand that I am not basing it on a bunch of assumptions, but on trying to reconcile when I see women who are by all appearances sincere liberals and feminists expressing doubts about Hillary publicly and there doesn’t seem to be enough substance to justify the doubt. We can hardly expect to meet perfect people in life, and we can hardly have a perfect representative for our views every time. Rather we have to recognize and take “good enough,” otherwise we never get the best person to fight for our views because we put them off.

    Apropos of what I was saying before about men talking about feminism, I think a lot of men who more or less support feminism never give feminist women their real opinions or real constructive criticism on gender equality issues or feminist tactics because they are afraid of injuring their relationships with feminist women and are well aware of the pervasive thing of women saying men’s opinions on feminist issues don’t count. The men are more worried about getting sex or maintaining friendly relationships than offering an opinion (which as you can see makes this more or less the men’s fault, too, just as it’s more or less the women’s) and this is bad for feminism, for the same reason men’s arbitrarily keeping women out of the professions and academia was bad for our society. Women are only half of the brain-power of this population. Some of men’s ideas about feminism or tactics may be very good, and by chilling their speech or arbitrarily ignoring them or discounting them, feminism is shooting itself in the foot. More particularly, particular points of view on particular issues may benefit from understanding men better and their attitudes towards the putative feminist solution- this is impossible when men don’t feel they can speak freely.

    That all said, I think there are a lot of smart feminists and that feminists do a great job of fighting for themselves, but I am just concerned that the feminist movement may start to stagnate from this point on and not accomplish near-to the kind of goals it sets for itself, and I think the problem I described above is a big part of that.

  • Little problem with the premise, Swan: the reason Clinton is pollingso well is almost entirely on the backs of women.

    Again, that’s no what I’m talking about, and there are indeed particular woman who doubt her or seem to me to support her too little. Especially if these women are especially influential, say if they are leaders of the feminist or liberal advocacy groups who are out-of-touch with the common, less politicized people who Hillary polls so well among and may see her in a little more distanced light, this is a problem.

    Sometimes distance obscures, but other times it provides clarity.

  • Point is, a few political leaders can make a lot of difference for how far someone’s campaign goes where thousands of rank-and-filers can’t sometimes. It all depends.

  • One more thing: I’m sure a lot of liberal women will say that they think their liberal guy friends will give them their opinions on feminist issues if they ask them, but, you should question the content of what you are getting– how many of them will give you a comprehensive and obviously honest opinion like what I just wrote above?

    Just like women, men sometimes find it to their advantage to tell white lies, sweet little nothings, or to be careful not to say too much. In my opinion, I am a particularly honest and blunt man in most of my personal relations, and a lot of men are far more crafty with people they talk to.

  • Swan – sounds like you have a bone to pick with the feminist women in your life – something I don’t think I can help you with.

  • Slightly off topic…… I always thought Swan was a woman just from reading his postings I made an erroneous assumption. Hahahaha, damn I’m sorry about that.

  • Swan – sounds like you have a bone to pick with the feminist women in your life

    No, I don’t, and I don’t know what you’re concluding that from. Incidentally, all I can talk about these kinds of issues based on, and all that the rest of us can talk about these kind of issues based on, is mine or your own anecdotal experience. But it definitely seems worth talking about if there’s a problem, right?

    Notice how if other honest men notice this kind of stuff, there are incentives for them not to bring it up in front of feminist women: if I’m talking with 7 liberal men and 7 feminist women about feminism or women’s issues (all thes people are my friends), I can’t exactly say to my male friends, “Come on now, give a real opinion– what you said just now is nothing, and bullshit.” I still want to be friends with those men, and I can’t say it in front of the women, because they want to believe that they have those guys totally whipped, and that they’re not hearing just a short + safe repetition of what all those guys think the women want them to hear. So the women aren’t going to believe me if I say the guys (who may even be pretty good guys, for the most part, except that they steer clear of the beating I’m steering for) are not frank.

    So I’m sure I’m not the only guy who notices stuff like this, but why bring it up in front of anybody we know if it just makes us lose friends? I’ve never brought it up in front of people before, or kept it pretty limited when I discussed it, and if there’s a guy who can think up a suavem nonoffensive way to prompt other guys to be more frank about this in front of women, it sure hasn’t been me, and I don’t know who it is. Why would we bother trying, anyway, if pretty commonly feminist women aren’t shy about saying right in front of liberal (and other) men that they don’t think men’s opinions about women’s issues count at all?

    I think a lot of women from another generation might appreciate this stuff, might respect me for it and understand what I was trying to do if, say, you showed these comments to a liberal woman 50 years from today, but today unfortunately I don’t think that’s the case.

  • Okay, so now it sounds like you have a problem with the honesty of the men and women in your life? It sounds like they just want to keep the peace and/or get laid. Still don’t know what to tell you.

  • I don’t know where in any of my comments I mentioned dishonesty of women. Anyway, you seem to be purposely missing the point, my friend. If as a means to keeping the peace and getting laid people are deceiving each other about important political stuff they are working on, that is a problem. If we (liberals both men + women of today) are not going to come up with the new ideas for the next generation to build on, then who is?

    Anyway…

    I’m sure people who read this are going to think of the feminist critique that women are not talking enough in class and everywhere else (usually seems to be based on anecdotal observation) and the socialization behind that- the effect that men talking a lot has on women not talking a lot, and I’ve definitely observed that time and again myself.
    But, how can women think that they are always going to know what men are thinking, and at the same time always tell men that they don’t want to hear what men are thinking? I 100% agree that there is a problem with women expressing their opinions and asserting themselves, and men’s (perhaps over-ease with) asserting themselves is part of that problem. But I just think that over time the balance of what’s a problem is going to shift away from that to not communicating and working with men women can get along with in an informative way. If this problem is not addressed, then 50 years from now we’re going to find that while formal legal advances won by feminism are in place, in everday between the sexes we will still be all too often experiencing (rather than communion and understanding) selfishness, deception, and ignorance.

  • Ah, I think I see what you are referring to now:

    “Come on now, give a real opinion– what you said just now is nothing, and bullshit.” I still want to be friends with those men, and I can’t say it in front of the women, because they want to believe that they have those guys totally whipped, and that they’re not hearing just a short + safe repetition of what all those guys think the women want them to hear.

    I wasn’t talking about telling women they are being dishonest, there, I was only talking about telling the women the men are being dishonest and not being able to do that because the women wouldn’t want to believe the men are being dishonest. Funny that you should misinterpret that.

    Let’s look at this a little closer: Let’s say after that hypothetical conversation, the other men leavem and six of the women leave, and now I’m just sitting in privacy with the strongest feminist there, because we are both smart and serious about this stuff and about to talk about what just transpired. I can’t just say, “You know what, it’s great that men and women can have discussions about this kind of issue, which they couldn’t 50 years ago- but to tell you the truth, after they listened to you and the other women give your opinions, those guys very dishonestly just repeated what all of you said back to you, and added very little to the discussion, because half of you are giving them blowjobs” can I? The women won’t believe it, because they want to believe that their guy-friends are being honest with them. And why should they think I’m not angling for something now, by saying what I’m saying about what the other guys said? Saying something to your colleagues or friends face-to-face is a lot different from saying it pseudononymously to people you don’t know over the Internet.

    So, if I told a woman about the kind of thing I discussed in my previous comments, she may possibly think “If the guys I know were not being forthcoming with me, [this other guy she knows] would tell me, because he has a lot of integrity and is very smart.” But actually, even if one of your male friends is very good and honest and smart about people, or just has your guy friends’ confidences, it may actually be a lot more likely that he wouldn’t tell you that they were being less than forthcoming, than that he would.

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