The sexist attacks on HRC are pretty sickening.

HRC's cynical playing of the gender card is pretty sickening, too.

Cf. Obama camp's race-baiting.  I'm not sure why Chotiner doesn't equate the two.  This is politics, after all.   (Then again, this is TNR, after all.)  Unfortunately for Clinton, sexism is acceptable in American culture, so will provide her little traction.  

Yes.  Well, sometimes my kid sister used to get her way regarding the TV channel by claiming to my mom that I or my brother or both of us had bullied her.  She gave that up around the age of nine or so.

Until January when I got turned off by her, her husband's, and her campaign's increasingly negative tone and ever-more-divisive spin, I was a strong Hillary supporter and donor. My support was duein part because I thought Bill at least showed us that a moderate-liberal could get elected and govern, in part because I was impressed with her work getting elected and serving as a senator, and in part because I very much liked the idea of a woman president.

Now that I have changed to Obama and become even more turned off by Hillary's campaign's slime-throwing tactics and even more bizarre spinning, I can tell you that it has nothing to do with Hillary's gender. It is solely a function of the vetting of the campaign providing deeper insight into her character.

Having embraced the woman's movement more than forty years ago(with the grain of salt that I view everything), and while there is no doubt that there are misogynists out there and people who are just immature and flaming, the vast majority of Obama supporters are clearly not sexists. I also have attenna that identify real sexism/homophobia/racist stuff. I can honestly say that I have not heard one word out of Obama or his campaign(he and they can't control supporters). On the other hand, its pretty clear that Hillary and Co. have played the race card, and than many of her supporters say they will not vote for Obama if he is the nominee. So how 'bout if the Clinton campaign speaks to all the Dem racists who are supporter her rather than the constant contrived finger-pointing.

Hey, if Hillary has to put up with this garbage, she's entitled to use it however she likes.  That's what they get.

Pfft. I don't respect someone who says "vote for me because bad people don't like me". She's entitled to use it, but it doesn't speak well for her if she does. She really should stick to reasons why the country benefits if she's president. All else is crap.

Why is there no acknowledgment in the article or in this post that the vast majority of the members of that Facebook group are only in it because they think that it's funny?  This is the same demographic that watches South Park and Family Guy - they find humor in stereotypes all the time, and often in ones directed against groups that they themselves are part of.  It's a joke; very few of them think that women should not be outside of the kitchen (except when delivering sandwiches).

Wow, the post is sarcastic, isn't it?  In my defense, it wasn't clear if Chotiner was saying that Hillary was wasting the goodwill generated by things like the Facebook group or whether both were examples of Hillary using accusations of sexism as a club.

Joking apart, there is a real issue here that Clinton was once much more in control of.  The serious possibility of the first female president taking office was always going to trigger deep-seated confusions and insecurities in both sexes about leadership, political dynamics, national identities, and the oddly intimate and at the same time distant relationship between Americans and the presidency.

Clinton knew, I believe, that she would have to walk that unfair but persistently present line that women in public life have to walk, between being recognizably feminine and empathetic and being politically competent and willing to do what it takes to win.  The danger was not so much that she was going to morph into a Segolene Royale or (the other extreme) a Margaret Thatcher, but more that she might end up lurching from one emphasis to another, appearing to be too soft at one moment and too Machiavellian at the other.

It was and is exploring virgin territory, so to speak, as nobody knew how Americans in general would respond to a real prospect of a woman as president.  And we still are mostly speculating.

Despite all the unknowns, she handled it all very well, and she even managed to chide the all-male-plus-Hillary line-up at the debates without getting the tone wrong.  Then, however, after Super Tuesday something got out of kilter and she appeared to want to tap into a kind of resentment vote that would be less for her than against Obama's relative youth and confident male charm.  She has mined this lode ever since, and I believe it accounts, at least in part, for her declining authority and weakening grip on events.

Bill Maher once said that being an adult means you understand both that the LA Police are racists but also that OJ did it nonetheless.

I wish more focus would be on Women at the lower end of the economic totem pole then the ones on the top. I have some sympathy, but not much, for women earning $150,000 a year who don't make Senior partner at the same rate as men, but far more sympathy for women making $7.50 an hour at a local supermarket. Hillary is worth 100 million, is a sitting Senator and former first Lady, instead of whining how unfair life has been to her, maybe she should spend more time fighting for these low income women (and the children).

Hell, lets not forget that she tried to bully everyone else out of the race by her campaigns incessant talk about her inevitability early on, using that line to bully many politicos early on into endorsing her.

At this point, whenever I see her on TV (like her interview recently on Fox, which has become her new bff) I just turn her off because I know she is going to say something that will set my teeth on edge.

great post irony.

mcdoniel - you're on to something - I think those facebook people are simply making fun of Hillary for being so transparent.

I can't justify Hillary's hiding her personality defects and thuggish behavior behind the real problem of sexism.  Her exploitation of it has often angered me to no end.  The Gloria Steinem phase of all this was especially gross, deeply embarassing to me as a woman.  As ejbenjamin put it so well, yep - there is sexism in the world and Hillary has been dealing with very little of it in this campaign.  She's among the most privledged candidates to ever run.

But just because she's a woman doesn't mean she's going to play fair. From her first announcement video she said "I'm in in to win."  I heard her loud and clear.  

Hillary made a bad bet taking the easy way out by blaming sexism for her poor performance - it narrowed her base to one or two demographics and destroyed any over-arching theme to her candidacy.  If she's so competent and experienced, why didn't she build her own career towards the Presidency instead of gloming on to her husband's hard-earned legacy? And insisting we do too?  

People don't mistrust and dislike Hillary because she's a woman.

Not that I give a damn about the fate of Eliot Spizter, the sanctimonious hypocrite, but, it is some form of what you liberals call "sexism" that he has to resign for frequenting a call girl but Barney Frank, who lived with a call boy who ran his business out of Frank's condo, blithely serves on?

Oh, and if we must go on about sexism, Ed Muskie was laughed out of his presidential bid when he teared up when talking about unfair press attacks on his wife.

Hillary sits there and cries because "campaigning is hard".  Yet few commentators have the balls to point out that this type of self-pitying crying is very weak.  And when and when someone from Obama's camp does say something, he's accused of dirty politics.

And, don't tell me that Ed Muskie was 36 years ago and we're not like that anymore.  If Obama had cried publicly over the difficulty of running for the nomination, do you think we would have yet heard the end of it?  I think it would have ended his candidacy.  And should.  

"Truly, the Clinton campaign and the candidate herself will stop at nothing to appear less likeable."

Isaac,

You have animal hatred for HRC. Everything she say or does just re-inforce your animal hatred of her and high opinion about Obama as well as high opinion of yourself because you so refined, unique and intellectual to be able to appreciate Obama.

jacob: "Animal hatred" wtf? why are you ascribing human emotions to animals?

the problem that you have to face is she is not very likeable. Now this does not disqualify her to be President, I mean who the hell liked Nixon, right? And he got elected, once by landlside proportions, but you don't have to jump off the deep end because someone points out that HIllary is making herself even less likeable.

blakcie writes, "...I mean who the hell liked Nixon, right? And he got elected, once by landlside proportions..."

Well, he won by a hair in '68 because the Democratic Party was immersed in a bitter civil war (hmmmm).  And he won in '72 because the Democrats ran an admirable man with ideas and policy proposals that were totally out of step with the American electorate (hmmmm).

Those people on Facebook (and I know them very, very, well) are not political, they are not the type to think things out, they are mindless cultural consumers whose common denominator is irreverence for the sake of irreverence. There's plenty to read into this, but the obvious critique is not the correct one. This isn't about sexism, it's about memetics and lack of social ideology.

Where have you been? She's been playing the White Woman Victim Card from the beginning. I just roll the eyes , sigh and say, ' there she goes again.'

Does anybody here really think that remarks like Hillary's "big boys" get much traction with voters, either women or men? Even if they did how fired up for how long would the effect be. So what if it's calculated? It's a vaporous argument that would barely survive the day.

Chan, good point about Muskie.  And, unlike Hillary, Muskie actually had pretty good reason to be upset (forged letters aimed at destroying his presidential bid).

On the sexism thing, I haven't heard anything from Obama or his campaign that could really be considered sexist.  For what it's worth, I don't think that the Clinton campaign has been deviously race-baiting either; I just think they're politically tone-deaf.  What I find extraordinarily irritating are the assertions by some of the more rabid feminist Clinton supporters that any opposition to Hillary is motivated by misogyny (see e.g. Robin Morgan's rant).  It hurts public perception of feminism and undermines their credibility with regard to real sexism.

AlanSP writes, "...extraordinarily irritating are the assertions by ...Clinton supporters that any opposition to Hillary is motivated by misogyny..."

Yes, and the flip side of it is that Mrs. Clinton has done more to provide ammunition for misogyny than any woman since...you know, I can't think of any.  I like most women.

Ah Chan, Since you mention Barney Frank, and wonder how he can be still serving: Larry Craig has been convicted of a crime related to....and Sen. Vitter was with a pr...., etc. etc. etc.and they still serve. What's your shtick with Barney, who is one of the most intelligent, civic-minded and funny people in congress? Or do you just have a perverse mind?

I like Barney Frank.  I despise Eliot Spitzer.  But, where's the consistency?  I meaning running a boy prosti ring out of your condo used to be considered a bit declassé.

I know, I know-- they got Eliot for structuring aka money laundering by wire, etc.

And, technically, Sen Craig was convicted of a misdemeanor, not a felony, so he gets a pass under the Fed law and/or Constitution.

Meanwhile, Foley was convicted of nothing and just suspected of flirting and ogling.  With BOYS.  Which, if your Barney Frank, is OK.

Look, let's not parse it for real, because it's all so damn silly.

It's like, "I'll only put it in an inch" games.

We don't really know what we think about all this stuff.  It's really kinda gotcha and or whose ox is being sodomized.

The ridiculousness here can be summed up in a nice, tidy nutshell when you look at who HRC is calling one of the "big boys" who is attempting to bully her - Chris Dodd, a guy she crushed in the Dem nomination race by about a bazillion to one. A guy who's been in the Senate so long that Lieberman is still the junior senator from Conn., and yet hardly anyone knows who he is - even after he ran for president.

And yet Dodd is the bullying big boy, and Clinton is the unfairly picked-on woman who's just trying to make her way in this mean old world.

To buy into that is to buy into lunacy.

Even if all of Hillary's victim shtick were totally justified (which it surely is not), it is a drop-dead loser way to run for president.  Hopeless.  The one thing all Americans want to know is that you are tough enough to deal with some seriously vicious enemies.  If you cast yourself as the "victim" of rhetorical attacks -- even if they are in reality attacks and even if they are in reality sexist and/or misogynist -- you have completely conceded the central point.  

Hillary is done politically.  Finished.  Over.  Dead.  Now we're just waiting for the corpse to start to stink.

"What I find extraordinarily irritating are the assertions by some of the more rabid feminist Clinton supporters that any opposition to Hillary is motivated by misogyny (see e.g. Robin Morgan's rant)."

Exactly.  From where I sit, this is doing more to set back women in politics than anything positive Clinton has done or is doing moves them forward.

One of the things I liked about Obama's race talk was that it acknowledged at least implicitly that people of any race can behave in ways that are not race neutral, even when they wish not to be known as racist, and believe that they are in fact not racist.  The same is true of the sexist attitudes held by so many many men, and quite a few women in this country.  I believe that economic and political equal opportunity between women and men is and should be the law of our land, and that we are duty bound to animate that equality in our lives, just as I believe the same about racial equality.  I am not a misogynist, or  racist by that measure.  But I'd be a damned fool not to recognize that I have to consciously suppress some deep-seated reactions about women and African Americans in order to live up that standard, both with respect to sexism and racism.

Even knowing this, though, if you call me a racist or misogynist, I will become defensive, circle the psychic wagons, and become less favorably disposed toward whatever it is you thought you might motivate me to do by pointing out my failings.  If I manage to overcome this reaction with respect to your ideas, which I might, because I really do want to live up to the creed of equality, I certainly will not with respect to you the speaker.  I will devalue in my universe as surely as the sun will rise in the East, not because it is right, but because it is human - you simply can't imply that I am something I've already been convinced to loathe, and expect me to like you, or respect your choice of argument.

More generally, you can't accuse or browbeat any person into better behavior in an even nominally free society  You need to appeal to the "better angels of their nature," and by giving them something to live up to, inspire them to do so.  Give them something to live down to, and they'll probably oblige.

It's pretty clear that Clinton understands this dimly at best, and that a lot of her supporters understand it not at all.  It's equally clear that Obama has staked his political future on the better angels of our nature.  I say bully for Obama.  I'm more than ready to be inspired at this point, and I suspect a lot of the rest of us are to, whether we know it yet or not.

Everyone now get it? If you dislike Hillary, well, it's because you hate women. Sigh.

scottlooper--

Michael Barone, who actually crunces numbers, knows politics, etc, is projecting that Hillary may win the popular vote by the end of things on June 3rd. You might want to read his piece:

www.usnews.com/.../projection-clinton-wins-popular-vote-obama-wins-delegate-count.html

Also, because I am a Clinton supporter, I find myself spending more time at MYDD than at TNR. The atmosphere there is less snarky.

Patricia

pc,

You'll still come by here periodically, though, right?

I think the far more important question is this:  Does Hillary even know how to make a sandwich?

or vacuum a room *really* well?

pc,

I disagree with Barone's assertion that those numbers aren't wildly optimistic for Clinton.  The only poll taken in Indiana so far had Obama ahead by 15, yet Barone projects a 20-point Clinton blowout.  Obama's numbers have likely gone down in the month since that poll, but a 35-point swing seems highly unlikely.  Barone's arguments about South Dakota and Montana might lead you to conclude that they will be closer than Obama's wins in neighboring states, but there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that Clinton could win by 20 as he projects.  Margins of 30 and 40 in KY and WV also seem overly optimistic (a mid-March poll in WV had Clinton ahead 55-27). To put it in perspective, Clinton's only wins by more than 18 were 43.8% in Arkansas and 23.6 in Oklahoma.  She has yet to break 60% anywhere outside of Arkansas, so it strains credulity to suggest that she will win 7 or the remaining 9 contests by 20 or more.

Are these numbers completely outside the realm of possibility? No, but they represent the upper limit of how well Clinton could do if everything went perfectly for her.  Even if this best-case scenario, she wins the popular vote by the small margin of 100,000.  If the actual numbers are even a little bit less of a rout for Clinton, she still loses the popular vote.

In any case, I do hope that you'll keep coming around TNR.

ChanRobert... I love your take on things and thanks for reminding us about our utter inconsistencies... big and small.

How did the woman who indignantly asked:  "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies..." thereby dissing all women who had not had the opportunity or luck to follow her on her road to what?  Get to be the feminist's darling?  Or do only I, a career woman about 10 years older than HRC, remember that particular little bit of nausea?  She turned me, a working woman, off then and there and since has given me ever more reason to have no respect for her whatsoever.  How about her strategy of calling all of Billy Boy's paythings, trailer trash?  Or does no one remember such things?

HRC gets the vote of women who feel "I'm not all that likable either."  "No one appreciates me either."  "My husband cheated on me too..."  and she gets the vote, if my registration work in NW Indiana yesterday is any gage, of the sour and the scared... not a pretty sight.

While we are talking about misogynists... any point in having a serious conversation about the ways in which our culture does really weird mind trips on men too, often deballing them in bizarre ways by refusing to recognize that there are some fundamental differences... not in ability, but in what... ? some stance toward the world?  (Now my daughter would take my head off for that, but I think my two sons might understand).

So... how about some two bit Psych 101... something ... maybe simply not winning the first super primary as big as she expected, let loose in HRC, the sister of 2 not for much good brothers, of what was an emotionally abusive father... she is now in some primordial land out of her childhood and it is showing much to her disadvantage.  It usually does when we trip into that part of our psyches and let it be the motor that drives us once we are adults.  It is usually car wreck time and that is what is happening to HRC.  And the worse the polls become and the more inevitable the outcome becomes, the more we probably will see of it.

Alan,

Thank you.

Yes, I was surprised to see Barone's projection. They do seem very optimistic to me. I think Clinton has a very hard argument to make. I think her strongest case is something like this:

She has consistently won in the big states. If delegates were apportioned as winner take all, she would be about 150 delegates ahead of Obama.

She can argue (to the politically sophisticated superdelegates) that Obama has gamed the system by focusing on small states with caucuses and small, very atypical democrateic enclaves or on states with disproportionate African-American populations.

That Obama is running from the voters in Floridan and Michigan, and that he fears the campaign extending into Pennsylvania.

That Obama has major liabilities that are incompletely known. See, for example:

www.realclearpolitics.com/.../four_stumps_in_the_water_for_o.html

Clinton can also argue that the popular vote count is not a straightforward calculation, and that it can be counted in various ways. This is a complicated point, but see Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics and Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic:

www.realclearpolitics.com/.../chooseyourown.html

marcambinder.theatlantic.com/.../how_to_count_the_popular_vote_1.php

See also Pollster.com's analysis of Jay Cost's ideas:

www.pollster.com/.../jay_costs_popular_vote_spreads.php

Patricia

Hillary represents Baby Boomer liberalism. It is a form of liberalism that cannot move beyond the politics of race, gender and partisanship. It is a form of liberalism that thrives off of presenting itself as being a “victim”: A victim of “the boys,” a victim of “the party establishment, which is trying to pressure me to withdraw.” It is a form of liberalism that gains strength by shedding tears for itself.

I'll point out what I brought up in a related thread:  why can't somebody normal like Diane Feinstein run?

She is moderate, popular across the aisle, very well liked in California, has a lot of nat security experience.  And has none of the weirdness, neurosies, and awful Clinton baggage.

I suppose because she's not weird is why she doesn't want to run for president.

Which brings me to my Groucho Marx axiom on the subject:  Anyone who would want to be president you wouldn't want to have.

Not on planet Earth pc.  Hillary can have all the arguments she wants.  Obama has and will have more pledged delegates and more popular votes.  There is not the slightest chance that the superdelegates will come to a contrary conclusion unless Obama collapses in the polls, and it is Hillary who is sinking in the polls, not Obama.  By the time NC is over, it will be clear to one and all that there is no scenario under which the lead in delegates or popular votes is going to change.  At that point, the supers will declare their intentions and the race will be over.

But will Hillary continue at that point the take Obama down or will she find a gracious way to acknowledge defeat?  That's the only question that, as a practical matter, remains open.

Thank god that we are delivered from Hillary Clinton and the Clinton psycho-drama, the long-running show that gave us Gennifer Flowers, the healthcare debale, and on and on.

Annabella2, you and I often see things in parallel.  There is just a hell of a lot of cant and hypocrisy and just damn stupid estrangement from the true nature of and differences between men and women.

It came out of the time starting in the postwar period when we started to have people with lots of education but very little wisdom.

I'm not saying there weren't things that had to be straightened out and made more fair for women.  Absolutely and of course.

But the biggest contributor to "women's liberation" was an invention of men:  The Pill.  Effective contraception, plus the industrial and corporate system that created jobs for women outside of the farm or home is what really changed things.

All the "movements" essentially provided rhetoric to explain--often incorrectly-- why the revolution was taking place.

Frankly, if men were more manlike, and women re-understood what it means to be a woman, equilibrium would return.  With women retaining plenty of power, thank you.  Awesome power, in fact.

Frankly, women have tremendous power over men and society.  Which is why men repressed them.  It used to be called the "battle of the sexes".  It is a power struggle between the genders that will last as long as there is a distinction between the genders.  

We need to make it humane.  But, we also need to learn how to live with our true natures.  Modern people in Western culture are very removed from that.  Hence much of the foolishness.

P.S. Annabella, and I agree with Mathawk, a lot of this is a Baby Boomere neurosies of self reverence.

As am heartened to see that GenX and later are in many ways a lot more realistic and are snapping back to the normal continuity of humanity.

YEP ChanRobert.  The Pill and also the need for a dual income in our consumer driven society.

And part of the problem is generational and oddly different in much of Europe where men still do an awful lot of the educating of boys...although that is beginning to change somewhat here, I mean more guys (although not enough) going into teaching at other than a college level.  Not good when women are seen as the only authority figures in homes and schools.  Too many want to turn little boys into girls.. easier to manage.  So a lot is out of whack.

And the victim mentality, whether on issues of sex or race, gets so old now... albeit, with the power, real power women have always had (even if it meant they couldn't hold a big paying job... how the heck did that ever become synonymous with "liberation"?)  it is plain silly to put sexism on a par with our history of race... Anyone else watch that marvelous PBS documentary on Eleanor Roosevelt?  And HRC says Eleanor is her hero/heroine.  Girl oh Girl.   She sure didn't learn any of the important lessons, did she?

You know Matthawk, HRC presenting herself as a victim of the party establishment, which she had a lock on until she started losing unexpectedly in the primaries is just such a HOWLER (on a par with Tuzla... but what is always so amazing is that anyone buys it, but they must.

The identification of so many women with HRC, is so off putting.  One can just almost hear some of those women saying to themselves:  "Well, I'm not so likable either."  "Nobody fully appreciates me either."  "My husband cheated on me too..."  So I'm just like her and I'm going to vote for her.  And if one were a real feminist (whatever that might mean) wouldn't one want to see a woman make it on her own merits instead of intertwined in such sick ways with Bill?  But that's a horse we have all flogged to death by now.,

Enough with the identity politics BS, already.

How many !@#!(&*%(&$!@(&^!@(*&!!!!)&*^()#(_*%^&!!! times do we have to learn this lesson?

When we allow the election to turn on kulturkampf issues incl identiy politics, _we lose_. Every time. Full stop, end of story.

When we stay disciplined and focused on bread-and-butter economics issues of the sort that millions of moderate-income two-parent working FAMILY voters care about, we win. Almost every time. And when we run a candidate who brings some nat-sec'y credibility and who focuses relentlessly on economics issues near and dear to swing voters, we win, every time.

It's too late for Joe Biden, but it's not late for Al Gore.

Do the right thing, superdelegates. Don't let our twin identity-politics fetishists f*** this up for our side yet again. Nominate Al Gore.

Annabella said -

"And part of the problem is generational and oddly different in much of Europe where men still do an awful lot of the educating of boys...although that is beginning to change somewhat here, I mean more guys (although not enough) going into teaching at other than a college level.  Not good when women are seen as the only authority figures in homes and schools.  Too many want to turn little boys into girls.. easier to manage.  So a lot is out of whack."

AMEN, Sister! I have both a daughter (11) and a son (7). My daughter, because she is compliant and "girlish" (although very bright and independent) sailed through her elementary school years. On the few occasions when she stepped out of line with her behavior, she would sob.

My son, on the other hand (who is equally bright and independent and very successful academically) has had nothing but struggles with his behavior, which of course is normal 7-year-old boy behavior but absolutely not tolerated by his teacher (my daughter had this very same 1st grade teacher, so the comparisons are easy to draw). My husband and I have really struggled with balancing having to follow classroom rules and NOT "girlying" him. Like it or not, there are differences in boy behavior and girl behavior that are products of biology, not acculturation. As a mom of both, that seems so clear to me.

Also, as to the issue of having more men teaching at the primary/secondary level - amen to that too. I've done a fair amount of reading about raising boys in our culture (ugh! - VERY scary) and have come to appreciate the need for boys to have strong male role models (besides their fathers) right through the primary/secondary ages. The more we do to raise the prestige (not to mention the salaries) of public school teaching, drawing well-qualified men to teaching these grades, the better we serve our boys AND girls.

Al Gore... the man who couldn't beat Bush by a large enough margin in Florida, even with a popular two-term president behind him.  How's that a good idea?

I respect Al Gore, I think he is intelligent, well-spoken and earnest.  But get real, he's not electable.