skippy the bush kangaroo: it's all ovaries except the shouting

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

it's all ovaries except the shouting

people are already wondering what the f**k happened in new hampshire, where literally 1000% of the pundits and pollsters got it wrong, wrong, wrong.

we have no opinion, except that pundits and pollsters are pretty full of themselves, and usually like that don't have any room for anyone else.

ari melber at huffpost sez it's the michael whouley effect:

the clintons shared another political asset in new hampshire, though farther offstage. michael whouley, the most respected field strategist in democratic politics, was dispatched to overhaul the mobilization program in the state. clinton aides had debated whether to deploy him in iowa, where he had helped engineer john kerry's huge comeback in 2004, or task him with fortifying the famous "firewall." some feared that his efforts would simply be wasted in new hampshire if clinton lost iowa, but the "plan b" advocates won, and now they look pretty shrewd.

but jeff fecke at shakesville has another theory: women were just damn tired of being condescended to, on a national scale:

subtle as a sledgehammer, but it carried through to saturday’s debate, where clinton was pilloried as “angry” for sternly defending her record, and for taking some shots at obama. the spin got so furious that margaret o’brien steinfels, writing at dotcommonweal, felt compelled to say, “just watched meet the press. tim russert and two political consultant, mcmahon and murphy were spinning like mad against hillary. do i detect a woman-can’t-really be president message here?” at the moderate voice, blogger holly in cincinnati added, “anger is often perceived differently in men and women. the same anger seen as an asset in a male candidate may be seen as a liability in a female candidate. i know this because i have often been perceived as an angry woman (and therefore dangerous and unstable) rather than a rightfully angry person" ...

in short, women had eyes, and they knew what they were being told. and while neither melissa nor amanda nor jessica were exactly clinton supporters, all of them moved to defend clinton from attacks against her, not as a candidate, but as a woman.

some will criticize this as misguided identity politics, but they’re wrong. oh, it’s identity politics — women in new hampshire and throughout the country recognized that clinton was being attacked as a woman, and came to her defense. but it’s far from misguided.

clinton may win the nomination, or she may lose; right now she’s probably the front-runner, but that could change tomorrow. either way, she’s blazing a trail that more women will follow. when the media and her opponents ramped up hatred against her because of her gender, women recognized that the trail she was cutting would be filled with pitfalls and mineshafts if the bile was not addressed. and so they addressed it. women who could write, wrote. women who could speak out to friends, spoke out to friends. and in new hampshire, women who could vote, voted for hillary clinton.

and that’s why she won tonight; because women recognized that, at least for tonight, their future was inextricably bound up with hillary’s, and that, at least for tonight, they needed to send a clear message that misogyny and sexism just won’t work anymore. clinton may yet lose — there are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose her. but if she loses, it won’t be because she was too emotional, or because she reminds someone of their ex-wife. it will be because she loses on her merits as a candidate. that’s as it should be, and it’s why our country should be grateful to the angry women who rallied to her, angry women who were angry for a righteous reason, angry women who accomplished something grand.

sounds right to us.

Labels: clinton, hillary, prez campaign, shakespeare's sister, womens issues

posted by skippy at 11:40 PM |

3 Comments:

I can't stand Hillary Clinton, but I am over the moon about the results in New Hampshire, thanks to the "in-your-face" answer to all the blathering know-it-all self-important pundits. I can't watch MSNBC any more thanks to the insufferable Chris Matthews, and I can't watch CNN and listen to them touting "the best political team on television" 30 times an hour. Last night I found myself watching FOX which was surprisingly acceptable, and WAY better than the other two.

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