Pussy Ruxpin's Clinton Rant
posted by
Pussy Ruxpin
posted
1/7/2008 3:07:47 PM
A friend asked me recently why, as a staunch feminist, I’m voting for Barack Obama 
and not Hillary Clinton. It’s a valid question although, frankly, not one that I’ve personally struggled with as much I had expected I would.
When I first learned that Hillary Clinton* would be running, I was mildly optimistic. I was a young teenager when Bill Clinton ran the first time around, and I remember the excitement of that campaign. Quite frankly, until the past year I’ve always been kind of a sucker for that particular brand of idealism and ignorance of reality that the baby boomers specialize in. Bill Clinton, for me, was a great example of that – all kinds of things went wrong on his watch, but all he had to do was smile and say something reassuring, and I’d come around eventually. Initially Hillary Clinton’s candidacy looked like a good opportunity to rekindle the good ol’ days of the Clinton-era, when I had my head buried in a blanket and thought the whole world was warm and fuzzy.
I think Hillary Clinton should be evaluated on her own merits, though – as her own candidate, and not just as an extension of her husband or his presidency. However, I have to admit, my gut reaction when I first started thinking about her candidacy was roughly as follows: “Wow, how great that a woman’s running for President! And Hillary Clinton, she’s been through a lot. She’s stuck by Bill, so she must have a really strong center. Clearly she’ll appreciate the importance of integrity and honesty, and she also must be a real believer in values like forgiveness and compassion. Besides that, I really admired her concern for providing universal health coverage. She’d be an awesome president!”
What I’ve seen from Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, though, hasn’t lived up to that initial excitement. What’s worse, I’ve realized that those initial hopes I had were based on faulty reasoning. First, let me explain how her behavior on the campaign trail has turned me off, then I’ll discuss why I think my initial excitement was wrong-headed in the first place. Oh yeah, and then I promise I’ll explain why, as a feminist, I plan to vote for (gasp) a man for President (this time around).
On the campaign trail, rather than standing firmly by her principles (as she did by Bill), Hillary Clinton appears to be choosing her positions on the basis of what polls well. She’s still talking about universal health coverage, but after all these years, she seems to buy into a lot of what’s already wrong with our health care system, and she looks like too much of an insider to create the drastic restructuring that is clearly required. What’s more, I haven’t seen anything from her in this early campaign season that demonstrates the integrity, genuinely compassionate spirit, and open-hearted commitment to the rights of the American Everywoman and Everyman that I think is required for a truly amazing presidency. I don’t believe that Hillary Clinton has my best interests at heart. Nor do I believe that she has the best interests of the women at our local domestic violence shelter, or food bank, at heart.
This brings me to my point about why I was misguided in my positive gut reaction to Hillary Clinton candidacy. I felt something for Hillary Clinton, and initially I evaluated her solely on that basis. Much like the people of Great Britain foisted a heap of expectations and perceived faults on Princess Di, and treated her relationship with Charles as a national romance novel, I related to Hillary Clinton not as Hillary Clinton, but as “The (former) First Lady”…as “Bill’s wife”. And in that role, I felt sorry for her. And I respected and admired her. And I appreciated that she was more active, political, and engaged than Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan had been. Further, in my assessment that she would be a good President, I assumed that she had all sorts of traits that I personally associate with being a woman in today’s world – intelligence, strength of character, resiliency, communication skills, commitment and compassion, budgeting and negotiation skills, work ethic, and so on. I don’t think she’s demonstrated these traits on the campaign trail. Further, these are not the platform on which Hillary is running. She’s running on a platform of “change” – a platform which I don’t think is supported by her record. The bottom line is that, yes, she is a woman. But, I don’t think that her gender accords her any special skill or status in this particular case.
In feminist academic circles, some people hold the belief that we can see more clearly from the margin than from the center. My gut reaction that (as a feminist) I should vote for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman is connected to this belief. The implicit assumption is that as a woman she would be less of an insider, more marginal, and more able to see the reality of the world more clearly. What I’ve realized throughout this campaign, though, is that Hillary Clinton is NOT marginal – she is an insider in the world of Washington-politics-as-usual, big business and privilege. Another point academic feminists make is that identity is intersectional. Hillary Clinton is not just a woman. She is a particular woman, a straight white woman who grew up in a privileged environment, and has had a certain set of experiences throughout her life. One final point from those academic feminists – any standpoint must be struggled for. Surely there have been major changes on the gender front throughout Hillary Clinton’s life, and I’m sure she’s struggled both professionally and personally for the position she now has. However, she has not, to my mind, been part of a community that has struggled to gain a clearer view on its own position, oppression (or oppression of others), and power.
Barack Obama is a man, yes – but he’s a man who has participated actively in the struggle for what has traditionally been a marginal standpoint. He has struggled for a particular kind of community standpoint with others on the south side of Chicago, and he represents a well-articulated and reasoned view not from the center of power, but from the margins where the center of power’s influence has been felt. While he does hold political office (and has for quite some time, in spite of the constant refrain of “not enough experience” you hear from his critics), he was not born into that office, or even into the world of politics. His experiences, I believe from listening to him speak, have led him to a very different understanding of the problems facing us as a nation than Hillary Clinton’s. Barack Obama knows real people, remembers what it’s like to live among them, and still cares enough to listen and act on the needs of everyday Americans. Furthermore, Barack Obama has that most rare ability, which is so sorely needed in our world today, to stand in one location and unite people from disparate positions all around him. Bush may have claimed to be a uniter and not a divider, but Obama, as we saw in Fitchburg with Lisa Wong, has actually proven that he can unite an incredibly diverse group of people to work for a common cause. Both America and the world badly need for us to have a President with that skill.
Being a woman doesn’t necessarily make you a better candidate for President, just like being a man doesn’t necessarily make you a better candidate. Experiences, values, commitments, struggle, skill and intelligence are what make a better candidate.
* By the way, is anyone else irritated by the fact that Hillary Clinton is so often referred to as “Hillary”, and Obama as “Barack”, but McCain is never John, Huckabee is never Mike, and Edwards is never “The other John”? Giuliani is occasionally “Rudy,” but I venture a guess that it’s considerably less often than for either Clinton or Obama. It seems to me like blatant disrespect of the only female and black candidates in the race, but I’ve been told I’m overanalyzing, that it’s just because their names are more uncommon.
Tags: hillary clinton, feminism, say hello to pussy ruxpin
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