Women's Week For Clinton

A Hillary Clinton partisan e-mails:

"Lets also remember Obama is trying to run against our Eleanor Roosevelt"

If there was one strategic assumption that seemed to be lost amid the spring hub-bub over Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, it was the idea that women would treat Clinton's candidacy as historic; that the mere fact of a plausible woman presidential candidate would create its own momentum and dislodge some of the skepticism that certain groups of women hold about Clinton.

In a memo, Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn writes:

About 65% of those who come to Hillary's rallies are women. Often they bring their children to see and meet the Senator. Often they bring their moms. Many women have a strong connection to Hillary's campaign, and they are increasing their support in many ways. This connection spans the generations and will be showcased this week by Hillary’s campaign.

Also:

A majority of the small donors to the campaign are women.

and

In our own polling, 94% of young women tell us that they are more likely to turn out and vote if the first woman nominee appears on the ballot.

Penn outlines what the campaign wants Clinton's campaign to mean for women:

In 1996, we learned that the power of the women's vote was being underestimated, something that is happening again in the analysis so far of this election. For women in their 90s, it means having gone full circle from first getting the vote to having a women president. For those who are working, it means breaking the ultimate glass ceiling. And for parents of both genders, it means being able to tell their daughters as well as their sons that they could grow up to be president some day.

Comments

Chris Matthews pointed out that if HRC gets 60% of the women's vote, it's over, unless the race collapses to a 2-way race very, very quickly, and even then, it's still probably over.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | October 15, 2007 12:23 PM

I think all these folks who think electing Hillary would be progress for women should ask themselves what glass ceiling does it break to make an ex-CEO's wife the CEO over better men and women? Is it breaking the good old boy network when the good old boy can get his wife elected senator and then president? Would women out there be happy if this was how things were run in their company?

Posted by RKA | October 15, 2007 12:24 PM

RKA, imo, your post assumes something that women DON'T assume about Hillary -- that without her husband, she would be nothing.

Although Bill Clinton left office with 70% of the nation approving of the direction he was taking it, and we all believe Hillary will veer back in THAT good direction (AWAY from Bush), we can all see that she views the world as a woman, which is something no man can ever teach his wife.

You end your post with a question posed to women that is framed with your own prejudices blatantly on display.

I don't think women are going to appreciate your weak assumptions towards Senator Clinton -- a woman who obviously has her OWN agenda as President, and who is currently leading the entire male Presidential field, both R's and D's, in every measurable manner.

Posted by Jan | October 15, 2007 12:58 PM

Hillary get's 60% of women vote, but it's women without college degrees who don't vote regularly.

Posted by sonya | October 15, 2007 1:24 PM

Hi Jan,
Actually, I"m a woman, and i could not agree more with RKA.
Without her husband, Hillary would be a successful, but unheard of lawyer, not a politician. She would be a "nothing" ploitically.

I find it dispiriting that the only reason we have a viable woman candidate is because she rode the political coattails of her husband.

Occupationally, Hillary did things on her own, but there is no disputing she has used her husbands political machine to get where she is today.

If she were not married to Mr. Clinton, no one- including you- would know who she is, let alone support her for president.

I look forward to the day when we have a qualified woman president, who earned the office by her own merits.

That's Not Hillary Clinton. I think it's an insult to women everwhere that the first woman prez could be someone who got where she is because of her husband's successes. I think that's pretty awful. There are women everywhere fighting against stereotypes, and this would only reinforce the misconceptions that women can't overcome barriers on their own.

I will never vote for Hillary, I intend to vote for someone who has made their own success, and has their own experience.
I also intend to vote for someone who is not a war hawk, like Hillary.

Posted by julie | October 15, 2007 1:30 PM

I'm a woman and I'd vote for a ham sandwich over any Republican running.

Having said that, I've had several savvy, older female friends (League of Women Voters types) tell me that they will not support Obama because they have waited too long to see a woman elected president. I think for a lot of 50+ women who grew up in the 1970's this is a big deal.

Considering that those are the people that most consistently show up to vote in November, I'd say Hillary has a big edge.

Posted by Teresa | October 15, 2007 1:36 PM

I am not sure if Hillary Clinton is the right person to carry our course. What exactly does she stand for? I'd rather choose Obama or Edward over Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Stephanie | October 15, 2007 3:00 PM

WEll, the fact that electing a woman just for the sake of being woman is a wrong logic. People should vote for a person who is more qualified to get things DONE in Washington. Who can unify this country for the benefit of all. AS far as I am concerned, this person is Sen. Barack OBAMA.

I do not want to have a 51/49 government where by nothing will be done, it will be like business as usaull. That is what we get if Hillary is elected.

On the Other hand, if Sen. Obama is elected, many states are in play and there is a chance that we can get a governing majority, where by WE CAN GET THINGS DONE!!!!!! for the betterment of our country. LET US TRY that route, because we have seen what is the past.

thanks,

Daniel, Desmoines IA

Posted by Daniel Desmoines IA | October 15, 2007 3:03 PM

I suppose that the women who will vote for HRC because she is a woman will ultimately be balanced out by the men who will vote against HRC because she isn't a man.

That means, in the end, this election will hinge on voters who make decisions based on the real issues.

The real issues, of course, are whether you hate children or support the terrorists.

Posted by Joe Schembrie | October 15, 2007 7:29 PM

A Hillary Clinton partisan e-mails:

"Lets also remember Obama is trying to run against our Eleanor Roosevelt"

Let's not forget Mrs. Clinton is running against our Jackie Robinson.

Posted by Cindrella Ferret | October 15, 2007 7:40 PM

Hillary is more than just a plausable female candidate: she's someone who has been actively campaigning for change and to make a difference for a long time.
She is more than a CEO's wife as one comment put it.
Last year I read her autobiography and read the speech she made at an international conference on women and children in China and it is an achievement that no other candidate no other person running this year can match. It was brave and honest and not election year nonsense. She at the helm of America can restore things many of these candidates can't. They are tired retreads. Many of those who are so earnestly behind Hillary are tired of all the folks who so loudly denounce her.
Remember she made first lady a legitimate modern credible role when its always been a laughable cartoon cloth coat state dinner and new china pattern role. Remember for many of us she like Eleanor R. lent her credibility to her husband though rabid critics like to suggest that her only credibility flows from him.
Obama is in the news tonight saying the same thing both Bushes said so many times, that he thinks things shouldn't be poll-driven: this is what they always said when their polls drop and Obama and his staff too sound like the wizard telling us to ignore the little man behind the curtain.
Hillary is a modern day Eleanor with her only credibility and huge accomplishment and a huge trust based on who she is and what we've all been through as a country. It is not entirely disconnected from who Bill is but it doesn't have to be.

Posted by Michael | October 15, 2007 8:30 PM

Where are all these female supporters? Not around me in Chicago nor my friends/family in San Antonio and San Francisco. Though we range in age from late 30s to early 70s, I know exactly one woman who supports HRC. She supports her for the same reason as the four male pro-Clintonites I know: Because they want Bill back in the White House. Their vote for her has nothing to do with her own accomplishments but her husband's.

Most of us are undecided. The most vociferous opposition to her candidacy comes from women, not men. Why? Because we do not trust her. Sen. Clinton can hardly take a position without pivoting one way, then the other. Any comparisons with Eleanor Roosevelt are ludicrous. Mrs. Roosevelt's focus was on the common good. Sen. Clinton's main priority is her - and her husband's - personal power.

Great question from another blog: If it would end the war, would Sen. Clinton end her run for the presidency?

Of course, she'd refuse to answer. Like George W. Bush, she will not answer hypothetical questions, lest they actual reveal her true intentions.

My personal question for her: How did you come to the opinion that you are more experienced than Sens. Biden and Dodd, and Gov. Richardson, each of whom has a resume that towers over your own?

Posted by Judith | October 15, 2007 9:35 PM

One can hardly criticize a person for not answering hostile hypotheticals like "if it would end the war, would she quit the race" as Judith posits. Such silly constructions shed no light on her or any of the candidates.
Why not answer hypotheticals? We all saw the first clinton administration almost sunk by Bill and co.'s promise about addressing the horror of how gays were targetted in the military. He said it'd be one of the first things he'd undo and then the right set him up and a strong lobby who'd stuck by him and help get him in wouldn't give him room or time (or couldn't without feeling very betrayed). He made promises about his intentions to adjust social spending upward and middle class tax cut and the deficit all based on phony pre election Bush economic numbers and fake projections and then found as soon as he got in that the real numbers that Bush had hidden meant he had to betray another key premise of his campaign. A pivotal tie and deep longstanding friendship to Peter and Marion Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund imploded over welfare reform. He was a centralist and as head of the new democrats (what was their acronym?) but the left felt betrayed. His key strategists wrote a book berating the democrats inability to be loyal through the thick and thinof an administration(Carville's Stickin') but it remains true that Democrats for better or worse don't understand much about loyalty at all.
So Hillary's aversion to sound-bite sized hypotheticals runs deep and true: boxing oneself in for stupid sound-bites in a debate means finding oneself elected but unable to do the things that matter most.
Richardson is a governor who couldn't get the main highway plowed last winter for days after a big snow fall (in a state full of ski areas!!!) Richardson's resume always seem to leave out the part about mostly working for Bill alongside Madeline Albright, that his getting people freed is about as real as Jesse Jackson's missions overseas. Biden? Didn't he resign in shame from another campaign? Isn't he kind of too loud to win? too excitable? Is he anymore suited for the job than Bob Dole was? Or Bill Bradley? Being in the senate and anchoring committees is not what it takes. We all want to deny that Hillary is more dynamic than all of them and that she leads the polls and won the mega- conservative northern counties of New York State twice. Her face sells magazines and gets ratings on tv and helps raises money on both sides of the aisle because she is somebody. Dodd got his dad's seat, kind of a Bush Romney Moonbeam Brown legacy thing. Here in CT we never see the guy. I love him because he's smart but at 1% nationally his run is kind of a phony thing, isn't it?

Posted by Michael | October 15, 2007 10:13 PM

Why is Hillary Clinton running for office? What has she ever done that qualifies her to be president?
I have voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since Mondale but next year I won't.

Posted by Chris | October 15, 2007 10:46 PM

Hillary is no slouch, to be sure, and she would make a far better president than GWB or the frontrunning Rep. candidates.

That said, she will not get my primary vote. As an over 50 woman, what I see of her is more triangulation and power grabs...more DC insider CYA. I don't believe she's against women particularly, but she will not serve them similarly to the way the neo-cons haven't served the far right Christian base they used so blatantly...it isn't in either of their interests to do so as it would alienate the power centers...and power is the lust for the Clintons.

I don't measure experience by association. If *visiting* 82 countries is classed as foreign affairs experience, how many in this world would suddenly be elevated to *expert*? If she was actually conducting presidential affairs on those visits why were we not told of that at the time? We would have screamed bloody murder at the thought of a president giving that kind of authority to their spouse. So which is it HRC? Can't have it both ways...though no doubt she will try. And as someone else said, her congressional foreign affairs experience pales in comparison to other candidates.

The Clintons had their turn and didn't do a half bad job. I don't want to revisit that era again though...most Reps will resist her with every fiber of their beings. HRC doesn't bring enough to the table to counter all the mess that will follow the power couple to the end of their days.

We have huge problems that need solving and while the Clintons can certainly help in that, them at the lead will only make solutions more difficult.

We need new blood...we need new thought...new problem solving techniques.

I, and my daughter, would love to have a woman as my president...but not HRC and certainly not now. I will look to someone like Claire McCaskill who's tough, fair and carries little if any baggage.

Posted by G Davis | October 16, 2007 2:42 AM

we all believe Hillary will veer back in THAT good direction (AWAY from Bush)

I haven't necessarily found that point to be clear. Her foreign policy views from six of the past seven years have been largely indistinguishable from Bush's--sometimes less extreme, occasionally more.

The Clinton election machine parallels, in many ways, the Rove machine, and her $5,000 college bond idea seems no less a vote-buying bribe than Bush's per-child tax-credit was.

To suggest that Hillary represents a return to Bill's ideology (thoughtful pragmatism more than anything else) is to suggest either that Bill is less intelligent and less an "Alpha" than both his sympathetic and adversarial biographers agree he is, or that she is subserviant to him. I find the former unlikely and the latter impossible.

Bill (to his infinite credit) could not have penned "It takes a Village."* Nor could one read his neverending autobiography and fairly conclude that he considered himself a Socialist (though I did zone out in large sections). I confess I haven't read Hillary's autobiography, but that's certainly the impression I received about her after finishing "It Takes a Village." I also concede that her record as a senator does not necessarily reflect that impression.

Nonetheless, Hillary is most likely her own politician with her own ideas.

we can all see that she views the world as a woman

It is also unclear to me that, in terms of politics, this is a) true and b) an asset.

On Health Care, for instance, the only major difference I see between 2007 Clinton and Edwards is that she's less specific and more dishonest--which doesn't lend any credence to the idea that female politicians bring anything to the debate that male politicians don't (and vice versa once the discrepancy in numbers has been accounted for).

Condoleeza Rice's womanly leadership at NSC and State Dept. hasn't helped in Iraq and Janet Reno's X chromosomes did not affect a nondisastrous outcome at the Branch Davidian Complex.

History has mostly been kind to Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir(sp?). But History has mostly been kind to Churchill and Rabin.

Couldn't it be that gender is a wash in the formation and implementation of effective policy instead of some sort of extra credit?

After all, the last universal concensus on this issue was that Harriet Miers' status as a woman was not, in itself, an appropriate qualifier for the Supreme Court.

*I don't think most of "It Takes a Village" could only have been written by a woman, just that it couldn't have been written by Bill.

Posted by Shinyk | October 16, 2007 4:10 AM

I find it amazing that people think Bill Clinton's rise to power and his "machine" had nothing to do with Hillary. Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't think she was a cookies at home mom during those formative years.

I'm also not sure what makes them assume she would be an unknown lawyer without Bill - does she strike you as someone who has trouble getting out of bed in the morning?

It's sad that in 2007 we still make the same belittling assumptions about a woman who puts a man's career ahead of her own. Now that Bill's taken semi-retirement, I think we're seeing more of Hillary's abilities in action. I don't think Bill created them, and I don't think they just started in 2001. And I also don't think 1 disaster in policy making/persuasion 15 years ago is a completely fair litmus test (and I think the uppity Moynihans and Bradleys of that time shared quite a bit of responsibility for the failures).

Posted by Desider | October 16, 2007 6:46 AM

And it's wonderful that we spend as much time worrying about the unfair head start Mitt Romney got because of his famous father, and John McCain got because of his (and his rich wife), and Jeb Bush got because of his, and George Sr. got because of Prescott, and Chris Dodd got because of his, and Al Gore got because of his, and John Kerry got because of his Forbes family mother and rich wife, etc., etc.

Perhaps Hillary should have taken the Arianna route and married a millionaire to become a "self-made woman". Instead she married a Yale law school classmate behind her, a dirt poor Arkansas redneck to boot! A schemer, she was, even back then - surely it was obvious he would be President so she didn't waste any time on those more normal Kerry and Bush classmates at Yale - obviously she was a gold digger and this hayseed-on-his-way-to-the-top was only a matter of convenience: a loveless marriage is born, all for craven success, Hillary style!!!

Posted by Desider | October 16, 2007 7:12 AM

Bill Clinton's being in politics running for elective office, believing in change intrinsicly means that he does believe that "it takes a Village" as Hillary penned. No one in public office fails to believe this and democrats certainly lead with this idea, however glib a previous post finds the construction. The book does not espouse socialism, rather it defended her husbands administration's efforts to make a difference with social policy, to affect individuals lives with social spending and targeted programs. All of us can pretend that the similarities between democracy and strains of socialism don't exist and try name calling but that gets silly and cheap.
Its astonishing how she polls so high and then people get on these blog sites and pretend no one supports her. They bash Hillary and then are certain no one around them support her: my father in law is one who can't discuss rationally some issues and some people: don't mention Bill Gates or Hillary or Bill around him. Thus he has no idea that his wife and daughter and two sons and daughter in laws and me his son in law and even his cherished grand daughter (9 years old) talk about her all the time and can't wait to vote for her. But we say nothing about it around him.
To all you irrational hillary haters who can't find anything decent to say, try hearing what others say and try figuring out why republicans in New York State support her in her last two elections. Its not just itchy wool over thier eyes.
Eleanor was asked to run for that senate seat just as Bobby later did. Eleanor was wided hated and her husband was hated just as Bill and Hillary were hated these past 16 years. Having opponents who hate you then is badge of shame.
Change is scary.
Comparing Obama to Jackie Robinson seems kind of sad. Not much policy in that parallel. Yes he was astonishing. And you'd do better dubbing obama the say hey kid.
The new blood argument is a tired argument: it got us Ross Perot and George W. and almost the volatile Dean. New Blood isn't enough.
The truth is Bill went in and had a steep learning curve, and Carter went in as fresh and new and outsider and had an incredibly huge learning curve. Hillary like Eleanor has seen these wars close up and gets it in a way others don't, won't and can't.
Obama will step in it and step in it and step in it and he lacks the experiences and time to weather some of it yet. Many of the former clinton folks around him are the thin skinned ones who left early and half his money are the single issue democrats who couldn't play nice or appreciate the real plurality that Clinton's serve.
Our own fault if we fall in love with a new face just for the sake of new. Are we that naive?
Michael

Posted by Michael | October 16, 2007 8:01 AM

To all you irrational hillary haters who can't find anything decent to say,

To be sure, there are some irrational "Hillary haters." But then again, even Bush receives some criticism that is unfounded.

I think part of the problem that rational Hillary Haters have is that Hillary supporters never give a compelling reason why Hillary is the best of the Democrats' top three.

If social programs are your thing, Edwards seems, with his extreme specificity, to be your best choice. If Iraq and corruption are your key issues, Obama jumps immediately to mind (Hillary's record on foreign policy should place her somewhere below Gravel).

If it's the economy, perhaps you would support Richardson (though, I admit I know very little about him). Still, Clinton has given me no indication that she knows anything or wants to know anything about the mechanisms of the economy, writ large.

Why then, we ask, would families like yours be excited to vote for her even as she's inferior to others on issue after issue that are said to be important to those families?

Experience? If that factor trumps everything, you should be switching parties to support McCain, who was also more critical of Administration policy on Iraq than Clinton for the majority of the war.

On a side note, we'll just have to disagree on "It Takes a Village" and its nearness to Bill.

Posted by Shinyk | October 16, 2007 2:37 PM