I'm going to lay my cards on the table, here. Like Ruchira, I have had difficulty summoning a great deal of enthusiasm for any of the front-running Democratic candidates. I'm a pragmatist, when it comes to voting in national elections, so the annoying and complicated combination of factors that narrow the numbers of viable candidates (including but not limited to political funding, the media's obsession with mano-a-mano battle narratives, people's inability to keep more than a few characters in mind at one time) have effectively reduced my choices at this point to Obama, Edwards, or Clinton. I would give Obama the slight edge among these three. I enjoy hearing him speak, though I find his speeches a bit windy. I could criticize Obama as naive and excessively process-oriented, but I believe he has substantive and consistent character, and I believe in the expressive value of his candidacy, especially to the part of the world where we've communicated the worst values in the last eight years. Edwards' populist rhetoric appeals to me, but his policies don't strike me as hewing far from the indistinguishable party lines of the others, and I often find myself wondering if deep down he's shallow.
The candidate who does raise my passions, if only in that the candidate renders me apoplectic, is Hillary Clinton. Perhaps because the policies of the Democratic contenders are so similar, the reasons for my dislike of Hillary Clinton are fairly personal: she strikes me as managing to embody both an empty carapace of ambition and an easy, self-righteous paternalism (a peculiar combination that presents with only too much ulcer-inducing familiarity to me from my time at Yale Law School). If Hillary Clinton were elected, I'd have to stay in my print news purdah, away from the TV, for another eight years, since as with G.W. Bush, her speaking mannerisms are like nails on chalkboard to me. If I could handle the triumphal-- "I might have agreed with those to the Left of me, before I learned better"-- themes of what she has to say in print, I would still subscribe to the New Republic. I don't.
Yes, I'm saying that I find Hillary dislikable, and I don't care if that's "mean" or makes her cry. Read the findings and statements sections of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWOA) and decide whether it doesn't take a far more "mean" person to sign a document like that into law, or to execute a person with mental retardation for political gain, or to ignore the genocide of hundreds of thousands of people and then disingenuously profess ignorance as a political excuse for inaction. Far more tears have fallen as a result of those (among other Clinton policy) choices than Hillary has shed over her treatment in this primary.
"But, those choices were made by the other Clinton."
Yes, but if we buy that Hillary's a bright, independent woman, she could have spoken out about them, then or now. Instead, she's worked very hard to align herself with Bill, and to profit from his popularity, however sleazily gained. Other than a term-and-change as Senator (don't get me started on her time as Senator), of what else does her endlessly self-advertised experience consist?
I'm troubled to see how little attention is being paid in the media to what seems to me an extremely notable point: in addition to choosing candidates in this election, we are given the choice of deciding whether, as a democracy, it is wise or even appropriate to have just two ruling families control the highest office in the country for almost a quarter century. I fail to understand why this issue receives so little press, except in catch-all references to the appeal of "change," which seems more identified, however, with non-partisanship and the politics of identity than with dynastic change. Why aren't people more concerned? Are we a nation of neo-Whigs? Is this Pakistan? Every political persona I hear associated with Hillary's campaign is like an unpleasant blast from the past. Last night, the commentators were interviewing self-satisfied clowns like Terry McAuliffe and James Carville on her behalf. This interesting article in The Nation that a friend sent to me this morning, about the foreign policy differences between Clinton and Obama, raised the specters of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger. Next, Hillary's posse will be trotting out Janet Reno; then, I'll really lose my lunch.
In 2004, I endured the soul crushing experience of campaigning, hard-- with my feet in New Mexico, with my wallet, and through a phone bank organized by Andrew at our house-- for John Kerry, trying to convince others to vote for someone when I was only voting against another, since I neither agreed with Kerry, nor admired him. Many others did the same. I will campaign again against any of the current crop of Republicans, even if Hillary wins the primary (though it makes my head nearly explode just to write that sentence). The example of 2004 does not bode well for the outcome of such an exercise, however, in terms of either my private or our public well-being.
Editor's Note: The author of this post is Anna Levine. Due to an error, Ruchira Paul's name appears on the footer.
I think we are just going to be holding our noses when voting in November. The candidates I really like so far will probably have dropped out of the race by then, unless the Goreacle decides to step in a blaze of glory at the last minute.
Posted by: Sujatha | January 10, 2008 at 09:03 AM
Very well said, Anna. Indeed, why doesn't this trouble more Americans? Coming from a part of the world where dynastic governments are the norm rather than the exception, I am uneasy with the feudal system of entitlement politics. It is disconcerting to see a female candidate running on a platform which is essentially her husband's presidential record. Can we then by extension conflate his faults and failings with hers? And with Jeb Bush, Chelsea Clinton and Jeb's photogenic son George P. waiting in the wings, we could take care of the next thirty two years of presidential nominations without bothering to cast a single vote.
Hillary Clinton's candidacy may actually be worse than the Asian counterparts. Unlike Gandhi, Bhutto, Aquino and Aung Suu Kyi, the patriarch of the "dynasty" in the case of HRC is alive and kicking.
For the Clintons, it is all about them. You have mentioned some of their cynical ploys. And remember the slithery Dick Morris, Clinton's manipulative Svengali who now has nothing but contempt for the Clintons? He is a regular guest on right wing radio where he spews his venom. At Morris' behest Clinton threw his erstwhile progressive friends like Marian Wright Edelman to the lions for "centrist" expediency. Do you believe for a minute that Bill Clinton, who couldn't keep a lid on his impulses when he was president and in the global limelight, is going to exercise restraint on his mind or "body" when he is the "First Spouse?" He is going to embarrass Hillary and us again, at the same time use his wife's presidency to re-write his own legacy. A man who despite his prodigious potential, did not take many principled or angry stands during his presidency (except to wag his fingers to assert "I did not have sex with that woman.") might use a second "vicarious" presidency to do a few more reckless things. The Clinton era looks so glorious now in light of the horror that came next under the leadership of another "dynasty" candidate who wanted to rewrite his father's legacy.
Hillary recently joked on the campaign trail that it is becoming an American tradition that a Clinton cleans up after a Bush. That would be funny if some of us didn't remember with some distaste that a Rodham Clinton cleaning up after a Clinton too was a tradition. A generational dynasty is bad enough. A co-dynasty may be intolerable.
With all these years devoted to politics and social climbing, the Clintons are beholden to a huge number of individuals and interest groups. All of them expect paybacks. I just want a fresh face on the ticket this time.
I had swallowed my disappointment after Howard Dean's loss in 2004 and like Anna, had supported Kerry both with my time and money. If Clinton is the eventual nominee of the Democrats, I will probably hold my nose, vote for her and hope for the best. Sitting out the elections may not be an option, what with the Republican Clown Car hurtling down across the aisle.
Posted by: Ruchira | January 10, 2008 at 09:58 AM