Never Quite Good Enough

    In 2008, Hillary Clinton was the first serous female candidate and the first to ever win a presidential primary, eventually racking up 23 of them and arguably winning the popular vote, losing to the rising star of the party by only 97 pledged delegates, while only falling behind in superdelegates a month from the finish.

    Throughout the primary campaign, Clinton was labeled as "inevitable", in lieu of her husband's presidency and her party connections, often as a pejorative accusing her of feeling entitled. Missing from this simplified equation was that many Democratic leaders had condemned her husband's actions, that he'd been impeached, that the 2000 election was largely about "Clinton fatigue" with many "liberal" media figures regularly slamming both Clintons' actions and reputation, and he didn't even have the coattails to pull his VP over the line.

    Additionally, despite the "2 for the price of 1" angle, Hillary's stint as a policy-focused First Lady was still regarded as short of a real job, except the taint that came from failing to pass a long-desired healthcare measure - more due to own party obstructionism than the expected opposition from the GOP. The 2002 vote on the Iraq military authorization perversely became a priority that it hadn't been for candidates in 2004. And of course the appeal of a black candidate who was seen as a bit more inclusive than the sometimes acerbic and foot-in-mouthed Jesse Jackson inspired many throughout the party, including the growing ever-more-important Hispanic democgraphic.

    In the end, there was little "inevitable" there once the actual contests began. Obama took Iowa out of the gate, and outspent Hillary in most races, and after a heavy loss in the 4th matchup in South Carolina, Hillary was playing catchup through the remainder of the season.

    Despite this well-known history, a similar narrative has played out this year. Despite well-known significant anger towards the Clintons as the "Republican lite" establishment, still significant anger about Iraq and later war actions on her shift as Secretary of State, and larger anger by the left over more marginalization during the Obama years, Hillary went into this year's matchup as not only the presumptive favorite, but supposedly a "shoe-in". Yet this again ignores basic realities.

    While the Clintons' prowess in raising money is legendary, that ability is limited by finance law as well as the continuing campaign expectation that she doesn't really need it. Additionally, the structure of the caucuses seems to actually benefit challengers and their irate, impassioned followers, a fact used by Obama's team to great delegate advantage and slightly less successfully by Sanders' team due to Hillary's experience in delegate math.

    Though the 2008 meltdown is 7 years behind, lingering effects and what seems to be an inherent time lag has pushed anti-Wall Street sentiment to the fore, Despite stints as Senator and Secretary of State, many still seem Hillary's rise as part of her husband's patronage (with not too much credit for helping create the brand to begin with - instead seen as some kind of tainted WalMart Arkansas lawyer in the early years, with poverty & family advocacy largely sidelined). Hillary's early career building on Alinsky's ideas, clerking for the Watergate committee and working on the McGovern campaign has to a large extent been blunted by the teenage "Goldwater Girl" slur). Additionally, the scandal re: her email server kept at home has been a burr in her saddle the last 10 months, with not much sympathy for how that relates to continuing Republican witchhunts and more FOIA filings than the world has ever seen.

    Nevertheless, it's all over but the shouting. And the shouting persists. Even though Hillary locked up superdelegates a half a year ahead of Obama's pace, and largely put away Sanders with an uncatchable pledged lead roughly 2 months ahead of Obama, Hillary is now criticized for "not putting Bernie away" in what should have been a "no-contest" contest. Unlike the excitement with Obama's historic 2008 candidacy, the excitement about the almost certain first female party nominee has been largely diluted by the "not voting my vagina" spin. While it was considered presumptious for Hillary to expect any platform or other concessions in 2008, certainly not an offer of VP, with any of her sore sport followers roundly criticized if not backing Obama, Hillary is largely expected to persuade her opponent's followers to back her, and to her credit, she seems to be pushing ahead in doing just that, tailoring some interesting initiatives that seem to be both well-formed policy rather than pure pander, while tilting left in ways that seem practical. Whether these actions satisfy the far left and a continued presumption that she's just trying to sell out to right-wing interests despite a pretty consistent 40 year pattern... well, that remains to be seen.

    I'm reminded of when the Dixie Chicks made their fairly innocuous comments about Bush, certainly a lot less venemous than what's been said about Obama and Hillary on a daily basis since (Ted Nugent, anyone?) or by Trump in every speech - and had major backlash with radio station boycotts and pretty much the destruction of their careers. I have trouble imagining a boy band having to do so much explaining or that backlash would have been so huge. Justin Bieber is tolerated; Courtney Love is loathed. 

    And I have a bad taste in my mouth from too many "we wuz robbed" declarations over the last 6 months. It's almost 170 years since the famed gathering of early feminists at Seneca Falls, robbed as it were, and somehow what should be a watershed moment is having much of the joy sucked out of it. I'm reminded that at Wellesley, Hillary's class learned how to coordinate and cater banquets for hundreds & thousands as a natural part of women's work, what females were expected to do over and over through their major careers as housewives and supporting partners. Somehow it feels like she's crashing her own party - that she didn't wrap things up quick enough, that she hasn't been a good enough Democrat, that she relied too much on others, that she should have been paying more attention to the other sides' issues than playing a practical agenda, that she doesn't have a honed simplified political angle, and that she's not a natural politician in a year we supposedly laud non-politicians, even though it just looks like a different kind of celebrity fandom to me.

    About 25 years ago, I first heard the question "what will the first female president do in the White House?" answered with "The dishes". Aside from an even more cynical "learn to make license plates" response, I don't think that much has changed. Just as Obama was often billed as representing women better than Hillary, in 2016 we're supposedly post-feminism, so that women have more important issues to fret about. While I appreciate women's ability to take one for the team, over and over, it feels that's never enough to have women's issues and needs be equivalent to the needs of others, or that women's achievements to rank more than an asterisk. Perhaps Hillary will become the Roger Maris of politics - coulda shoulda woulda style. Well fuck 'em anyway - what would she do her first day in the White House? Anything she fucking wants. That indeed would be enough.

    2008                                                                      2016

    Comments

    Hillary did note vote for the 1994 crime bill. Bernie voted for it and does not apologize. Sanders wishes that he had a better bill, but does not apologize for his vote. Hillary's vote on Iraq was not an authorization for war, but facts don't matter. 

    Voting for Hillary is the same as voting for Trump. (Except for the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and lack of knowledge of how government works). Hillary is a shill for the corporate elites, despite the fact that she is such a poor fund raiser that Bernie Sanders has been out spending her in every state. 

    Hillary kept the military from responding to Benghazi. She crumbled the governments of Haiti and Honduras single-handedly. 

    We get nonsense. No one points out the disaster the country would face if Bernie Sanders became President. He would have to come out of his protected shell and actually have to take responsibility for proposed legislation. He would have to sign many imperfect bills, or let the government shut down. Hillary is the most rational choice in 2016.

    The same people who told people who told people to stay home at the midterms and wanted a Primary challenge to Obama are the ones complaint the loudest about Hillary. 


    Here are infantile Bernie Sanders supporters attempting to shut down a Democratic Party convention in Nevada because the session did not go their way. Sanders needs to shut down his campaign to prevent Sanders supporters from creating chaos at the Democratic National Convention.

    http://thedailybanter.com/2016/05/sanders-nevada-democratic-convention-c...


    Descending into poutrage, inspired by Republicans at the Florida 2000 recount and the Tea Party townhall protests of 6 years ago, I suppose. Funny bedfellows.


    Thanks, Peracles. So we'll see if a successful woman who has more experience than any candidate in either party can beat a man who has real estate development as his skill set and whose every other word denigrates women for having bodies or behaviors which offend him.

    Hillary is an enabler and Trump loves and respects all women.


    You sell Trump short - he plays a huckster on TV. Quite successfully so. And lots of experience in raising venture capital and bankruptcy, often at the same time. Plus specializes in classic chassis imports, favoring East European models I'm told. Funny this is the guy who's supposed to restore honor to the Oval Office.


    You really have to wonder how long he can shoot from the hip without being called on it.

    The statement that he takes out debt knowing he's going to repay at a discount is astounding and I'm surprised that it doesn't raise a legal challenge of some sort.


    Any woman, black, Latino, or Asian who made the idiotic statements that Trump has made would have been called out long ago.Trump benefits from being a dumb white male. Herman Cain and Ben Carson are also idiots, but they could not get the Affirmative Action that Trump receives from the media. MSM had no problem calling both men idiots for 999 and grain storage, respectively. Sarah Palin was labeled a dummie after the interview with Katie acoustic. Trump can be free to be stupid and still be the front-runner.


    One of the disappointing things about Hillary dispatching Bernie is that there isn't much left to argue over.  Excellent piece! 


    Can always pick over the remains...


    This is a big, fat emotional wobble. 

    You're pitching as though the election is about somebody who's "done enough," put in the miles, and on top of that is a woman. So, hey! "Doing anything she wants would indeed be enough."

    Errrrm, no. That's actually crackers. 

    As though we should have agreed that Obama doing "anything he wanted" would have been enough.

    He didn't do what I thought he should, so screw it, I criticized him. 

    And there are in fact millions of people in the world with the capabilities to take on a job like this. Parliamentary democracies worldwide have been showing for quite some time that it isn't only some rarified group that can apply. Some US political commentators may believe its leaders need to reach some special tier of experience to function as "leader of the Free World"... but the reality for many many years has been that experience - Clinton, Obama, Bush et al - hasn't actually been that critical.

    So I don't pick who I want to lead based on having a long enough resume.

    Or their sex.

    And I sure as shit don't say "anything you want" to ANYONE entering office. 

    I loved the Clintons. AND yet their record on being too tilted to the forces of money and power isn't a happy one. Those things can co-exist in my mind. I loved them on some things, hated them on others.

    This strikes me as entirely reasonable.

    And then, there are the times. And in 2016, the situation seems to me to call for something more than HRC offers. 

    Finally, I'm not into electing a woman just to elect a woman. I want to elect someone who will DO things for women. And in particular, poorer ones, the women who are worse off. Not the ones bouncing off glass ceilings. And if Hilary's the one who can best do that, then great.

    But if not, then to hell with her. 

    As for "Never quite good enough?" Jesus, PP, spare me. I'm not voting for anyone because they put in the miles.

    I vote for someone because of what they're gonna do on the miles ahead. 

    If HRC's the best of those available to do that, then so be it. 

    Right now, I'm unconvinced.


    I thought PP's blog was more about the double standard or even the Hillary standard that Hillary faced. I think it goes deep, deeper than PP even discussed. I'll add just one more example to PP's blog. As Hillary is attacked for being a "Goldwater Girl" Elizabeth Warren has openly stated she was a republican until 1994. A simple fact that almost never gets mentioned. I wonder how many people here among these well read news junkies know this.

    Is Hillary the "best?" imo She's the best who decided to run. And that's the only choice we get. I've always liked Hillary and it would take a lot to pull me away from her. But I've also been a long time fan of Kucinich. If he had run instead of Sanders I'm just not sure who I would have voted for.


    Yeah, OceanKat wins the psychoanalyze PP contest - thought the 2 maps would be dead giveaway, but guess Quinn's having a rough thematic conclusion. Yes, Quinn, to put it in terms you're familiar with, a long strung out poo is not better than close compacted poo. Even calling it something cute like Winnie doesn't help - it's still poo. Nevertheless, some people's poo apparently doesn't stink, whereas others' always did and always will. Presumably. For reasons no poo bear would ever understand. I only know it gets on my fur and makes a mess. So harumph. Must get back to my den, fix me up some honey. As a suppository. Rock candy, baby - hot sweet and sticky. \stop looking already....


    Wha?

    Look. It's great that HRC is a woman. Yay. Extra points. It's great that she's hard-working, and smart. Extra extra points. It's great that she has experience too. Lots of pluses.

    Minuses? Well, I don't give a damn if she started as a Republican. Even personally having money doesn't disqualify her for me. 

    But. 

    I find her singularly lacking in... ideas. And this is across almost her entire career. Whether it's in being able to come up with them or move them forward or somehow catch the public imagination with them.

    People can then say "She's practical though." Ok, fine. You can say it. But what has she actually, you know, achieved? Policy-wise?

    I didn't like her much in Cabinet. She didn't do well on health care. etc.

    And.... we are also permitted to just have feelings about the person. We may not find them charismatic, and that can be ok, but we may not believe she has the ability to move people. A useful tool in a "leader."

    So what was your argument today? [Not saying it was the sum total of all your thoughts, just the one presented.] Mostly that.... she had put in the miles. 

    I didn't think that was enough.

    If it's her vs Trump, I vote for HRC. I maaaaaybe even vote her over Bernie, depending on what baggage I think he carries. 

    But the ideas that seem to have gotten brewing, that those who don't love her somehow are anti-women, or are cheating about her past, or just part of being unfair like the media, or I'm psycho and going to run a 4th party campaign, etc..... I'm not sure these all wash. 

    Surely there are legitimate grounds for a person in a party to not prefer a candidate? 

    Or is it just the poo. 

    And I'm willing to consider that, given the company.


    Uh, well, she put reforming healthcare on the front line and kept it there. Even after being hit over the head with her initial failure numerous times. Even after her go-it-slow opponent got elected instead of her. She pushed various women's equality issues to the forefront globally, including taking it to Beijing at a time when everyone was jumping over themselves to acquiesce to Beijing restrictions to get that offshore biz gold. She's campaigned for and helped fund a lot of Democrats. And then she's done lots of other stuff, and taken positions on stuff. You know, the family unit advocate, the single woman advocate, rural poverty.... Well, you can call it poo or diddly. And yeah, she sucked it up and played the Andrei Gromyko exiled-in-foreign-service bit for a 4-year-stint, one of those jobs guaranteed to keep the stink on you. But useful when the Repugs come at you with all the "make the desert glow" and "build a bigger wall" and "make America great again" crap that comes from never having held a real governmental decision position and having to actual try to fix or contain something that's broken.

    As for the "anti-women" bit, I think you should be aware by now that we pretty well shit on all women - note the pretty piss-poor protection of access to abortion, for example, and there simply haven't been many that had a snowball's chance in hell of a a position of power until they're nigh ancient, except Barbara Jordan who died young, and Geraldine Ferraro who was just a congresswoman. Nancy Pelosi's 76 now. Elizabeth Warren's a spring chicken 66. McCaskill is still kicking a bit, Wasserman-Schultz is now the incarnation of evil, Blanche Lincoln is gone, and then on the far side of unlikely's Tammy Duckworth with 3 years congressional experience and then there's Tulsi Gabbard who seems as likely to become a Republican or Fox correspondent or start a native Hawaiian commune and health food business.

    In the end, the Democratic farm team sucks, and especially on the female end of the bench (called the backbench typically). It wasn't too great after Bush, and Obama didn't do too much to rebuild, so we end up with 2 contenders who'll turn 75 and 70 this fall. 4 years ago I was one of those advocating primarying Obama and suggesting that the odds against Hillary keeping enough energy and edge and relevance to run in 2016 were higher than people believed (and hoped that someone with new ideas would step up). Well, I didn't get either wish, but at least Hillary got primaried so that she polished up her liberal side of the triangle even as we don't have great options on the defense side, or a bit too much hope-and-prayer for "lessons learned". Nevertheless, even with her foreign policy missteps and uncertain legacy, she's miles ahead of any other GOP or Dem contender in terms of preparing and trying to understand the issues in-depth, and 100 times more prepared than Obama or Bush or previous Clinton were going into office. So yeah, quite good enough for me.


    I keep twisting this round in my head and can't get a handle on it. Yes, Hillary is "never quite good enough" (beautifully put, btw). Yes, that's because she's a woman, at least in part.

    And yet. While I'm sure that any woman running for president would have it tough, I suspect that Hillary has it tougher. Like ocean-kat said, no one attacks Elizabeth Warren for her previous life as a Republican, but Hillary still gets shit for being a "Goldwater girl" in high school.

    There is something about Hillary that makes criticism stick, even the most banal or ridiculous accusations. If Reagan was teflon, Clinton is superglue. I do predict that she'll defeat Trump, and I do believe that she will do a decent job in the White House, but I fear that she will be the least popular president since Herbert Hoover, doomed to a single term that sucks the Democratic Party down with her.

    I get the irony. I know that in writing this, I'm also saying that Hillary isn't "good enough." My superglue comment is just another way of saying that she lacks charisma, which is what all the haters say. But I can't shake it. I just really hope that I'm wrong.


    Well, it's okay to have the adult version of this conversation. Sure, we all wonder how much of an H. Clinton Administration would be spent with FOIA requests, Benghazi-like hearings, and new Supreme Court rulings pulled out their ass. Citizen's United was created special for her, to allow free money to pay for attack ads on .... Hillary! Who else would inspire such a vast overreaching reaction to a free speech problem.

    I do find her quite likeable, but there are times when she pivots to the attack that I find her cringeworthy. Not necessarily from style - it seemed a few facts got trampled in the making of the response to Bernie on health care, not that it didn't eventually evolve into a justifiable plaint. It was just a little like when I try to trim back the flower bed with my weed eater and a few poinsettias lose their tops. Not catastrophic, mind you, but unsettling.

    The superglue analogy seems apt. Even for bystanders. Gloria Steinem said something a bit stupid, but Madeleine Albright went from being consummate admired Secretary of State to "let's analyze what she actually did; oh dear, she was a neoliberal architect of some of the worst atrocities this century". Even Sarah Palin and Carly Fiorina didn't provoke such vituperative, forceful "I'm not voting my vagine" responses. Woah - I don't recall the ERA campaigns of my youth descending into "we don't need special laws for our snatch", or even "private parts" in the more dainty south. And considering Condi Rice's role in both letting 9/11 happen and getting us into Iraq, I don't recall near as many obscenities, especially sexist ones. Hmmmm., so now I'm in a muddle - i'm arguing 2 things at once, that Hillary's toxic or superglue for many people, but it's sexist and at the same time not sexist per se but personal. "It's the woman in you that brings out the ratf*cker in me"?


    It's both of course, sexist and personal. Clinton's tendency to draw criticism is magnified by her gender.


    I was thinking of some peculiarities - Hillary is tainted more by Obama's foreign policy than Obama himself, or Joe Biden, or John Kerry who's been in for most of the Syria effort, or any of Obama's Secretary of Defense. I recall early on as SoS, Hillary had trouble even choosing her own deputy, yet 3 1/3 years out of office it's assumed she was all-powerful in pursuing any foreign policy objective, including the military ones. The term "Arab Spring" also seems largely forgotten, including the rather stark failure in Egypt when an Islamist took power, eventually resulting in a quasi-democratic-soft-coup.

    Similarly, the Iraq AUMF vote has been wrapped around Hillary's neck like no other - and there were certainly numerous others. The irony of Joe Biden coming in as a "savior" candidate to save America's soul was especially deep, considering his identical vote and his devotion to the rich Delaware insurance industry.

    Even the issue of speeches, ignoring Morgan Stanley for the moment, is odd in that Bill Clinton's been the singular Democratic rockstar for 25 years - there have been very few politicians of either party in that time that anyone would care to actually listen to (certainly not either Bush, or Condi Rice, or Dick Cheney or Boehner or Mitch McConnell; maybe Ryan or Ron Paul, and on the Democratic side Gore and Kerry were a bit stiff, Bradley boring, Dukakis similar, and not until Obama and later Warren were there any contenders - and Bill got more rockstar treatment at the 2008 convention. In short, there's one speaker that stands out, yet in an age where Matt Lauer makes $25 million a year hosting TV and Kim Kardashian's saved up $77 million doing tweets and Howard Stern made $95 million in 1 year on radio we get outraged that the most gifted political speaker of our generation makes decent money speaking, or that a one-of-a-kind hugely-popular-and-hugely-hated female politician in her 3 off years also made something akin to Diane Sawyer's $12 million a year (typical star female anchor at $5-7mill/year, while Oprah makes roughly $200million/year). Especially when on the other side, we have Donald Trump's billions from failed businesses, Carly Fiorina's golden parachute from a business collapse, Ben Carson's huckster-driven wealth, Ted Cruz & Chris Christie's wives working for big Wall Street firms, loser Mike Huckabee making millions on Fox & speeches, boring Jeb Bush somehow gaining $20 million since he quit governing 8 years ago...  aside from $175K speaking fees, Al Gore made $30 million sitting on Apple's board and similar with Google, flipped a failing cable channel to Al Jazeera for nearly $100million, and unexamined is his bouncing back from his Bush loss to be Vice Chairman of Metropolitan West Financial that provides rich people & companies "financial advice" - no political patronage in all of these?


    There's just no hate like Hillary hate. I've never understood it.


    To be fair, Hillary's position is unique. None of those other folks are likely to become president this year, and Hillary received much less flack as a senator. That said, this is a thorough enumeration, and I agree that Hillary always seems to get less credit and more blame than the other Democrats at her level.


    I predict Trump will win in a squeaker. Americans will get what they want. A 'tell it like it is outsider' Reality TV Show Real Estate huckster. Like a Kardashian in the White House. A guy you could have a beer with, and with the added benefit you think he is going to pick up the tab.

    We will go through another 8 years of waking up every morning to the latest shocker. Terror attacks. Market corrections.  Dollar collapse. Bombings. Terror alerts. Body bags. Like a 3rd and 4th term of George W. Bush, as Trump has all the same advisors. Tax cuts for the rich that once again don't work and explode the deficit.

    In between, TeeVee with endless mind numbing discussion on nasty stuff Trump said to piss off another country, the UN, an ethnic group, a religion, a judge, a court, Congress, a media person, a gender, a legal case, government workers, his White House staff, his chauffeur, his SS agents, his wife, his hair stylist...

    Too late Americans will discover there is no 'change the President' button on their TeeVee remote.


    "A guy you could have a beer with, and with the added benefit you think he is going to pick up the tab." - in his tavern, and then you discover it's gone tits up and you're stuck with paying off the mortgage.

    But whatever he says, we know it won't create the stir of a flippant Hillary "superpredator" or "we came, we saw, he died" remark. Because, well, he's Donald. We'll get used to him. The Republicans already have.

    In the 80's we brought Alfred E Neumann into our TV sets with Letterman. Now we're bring his angry kid brother into the White House. Spy vs. Spy, Mad vs. Madness...

     vs 


    Crap. I was wondering why that button wasn't doing anything. I thought I was just pointing the remote the wrong way. 


    I do not know why I do this but....

    I will be reading some nothingness on the Web as it were, and I keep my remote next to me at all times so that I can mute the cable. hahahahha

    And I will actually grab the remote to change the web. hahahahahah

    Please do not tell anyone. hahahahah


    well, Dick, I just click the remote that goes to the cortical implant in my brain. for a few moments there's lots of static like 1950's TV, and then there's.... nothing. And after a while, the images start to return, and the sounds, and the shrieking, and then someone says, "oh oh, Peracles shit himself again". so you could say it's a remote control to my poop response, and you wouldn't be completely wrong, but that silence is golden.


    If Americans could vote on their couches while watching TV with their remotes I am convinced voter participation would go way up. Whether that would be good or bad I have no idea.

    And Donald stiffed me for that bar bill.

    Including a bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru which I had no idea cost $350 bucks....  #@$$$%!


    Oregon for one has universal email  mail voting - let's see how today's election goes.

    Except:

    The new “Motor Voter” policy has added more than 67,000 new voters to the state’s voter rolls, andofficials are hoping Tuesday’s primary will have record turnout. The new system has especially been a boon for young voters; since September, the number of registered voters between the ages of 18 and 29 has increased 21 percent.

    Yet thousands of voters who received ballots in the mail over the past few weeks may have been surprised to learn they can’t cast a vote in the presidential primaries. Oregon operates closed primaries, meaning that only registered Democrats can decide between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and only registered Republicans can decide between Donald Trump and the ghosts of Ted Cruz and John Kasich, who have already bowed out of the race. Under the new DMV system, voters are automatically registered as “unaffiliated,” and later receive a form in the mail giving them the option to change their party affiliation or opt out entirely. The vast majority — 76 percent — did not take that extra step by the late April deadline, and thus can’t participate in the presidential primary. They will still be able to vote in some local races.


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