Letters to the Editor
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The Politics of Identity Politics
I find the media's collective uproar over whether or not Clinton played the gender card to be just plain silly. Given the extent to which the male gender card is played, swapped, and collected 24/7/365 on the network and cable news, their feigned outrage is not without irony.
The truth is that identity politics has been central to the political process since long-before the Roman Empire. Further, every President in US history got there by playing some form of the male gender card.
Indeed, any objective view of the current Presidential field reveals that Clinton is not alone in trying to win over voters by means of identity politics.
Earlier in the campaign, when asked about any concern she had for her husband's safety, Michelle Obama replied:
"The realities are that . . . as a black man . . . Barack can get shot going to the gas station".
Obama himself appealed to fellow African Americans by citing the historic opportunity in electing the first African American during a recent swing through South Carolina:
"Now I've heard that some folks aren't sure America is ready for an African-American president. So let me be clear, I never would have begun this campaign if I weren't confident I could win. But you see, I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."
For their part, the Edwards campaign has also utilized identity politics throughout their campaign.
When Elizabeth Edwards blamed the media for their campaign's poor press. She said:
"We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman".
During a recent swing through the south, John Edwards was accompanied by "good ol' boys" Mudcat Saunders and Cooter, from Dukes of Hazzard. During a speech addressing electability in the southern states, Edwards said:
"If you're running in a tough congressional district somewhere in America, anywhere in America, and I'm in one right now, okay, you gotta ask yourself would you rather have Senator Obama at the top of the ticket to help, Senator Clinton at the top of the ticket to help, or John Edwards at the top of the ticket to help. You got to have someone who is strong in all those places and who is not a drag on candidates who are trying to win in those places. The easiest way to do it, honestly, is to picture in your head each of us running in a tough place -- we're in one right now -- and which one's going to be more helpful and which one's not, because I think that does matter."
A few eyebrows were raised when the Edwards campaign highlighted Elizabeth's ongoing fight with cancer in its recent "Heros" ad. This same ad came under additional scrutiny for using only white Edward's supporters. Some even suggested that the non-diverse ad was an intentional effort to appeal to overwhelmingly-white Iowa caucus voters.
Personally, I think it's all OK!
Each candidate has the right to appeal to whomever they want, however they want. In turn, voters can exercise their right to vote for whatever reason they so chose.
The marketplace of ideas will always clear itself and the candidate with the most compelling argument wins. Because, in the end, it's for the voters to decide which card is trump, not the media
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"To be fair to Clinton..."???
An amazing paragraph: "To be fair to Clinton, she hasn't been 'playing the victim card' herself -- she sort of tried to unplay it Friday in New Hampshire -- but her campaign and some of her supporters have done it for her."
Fair? Seems like it's MORE than "being fair" to Hillary Clinton -- plausible deniability is a bit lacking here.
Um, how does one separate Hillary Clinton from "her campaign" that neatly? Considering how well-oiled and finely-tuned her campaign machinery has been to date, is it plausible that she had no warning about, or control over, the statements made by "her campaign" on this occasion? And even if it were true, has she actually and specifically repudiated what her campaign said regarding the implication that all those brutes were piling on the lone woman?
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Hard Work, my ass
What hard work to get to the leadership table? Three names got to where she is by being the presidential spousal unit. Zero to US Senator in 8 years. While New Yorkers have demonstrated that they'll elect anybody who has a big name (as, for example, they did with Bobby Kennedy) even if the big name doesn't really live in New York, does anybody really think that they would have elected her if she'd only been the small town lawyer wife of the former governor of Arkansas? Most people who end up in the US Congress either make a name for themselves in local politics and go into the House of Representatives (and maybe up from there) or make a name for themselves in the state legislature and go from there. Has three names done any of that? I don't think so.
To be fair, three names isn't the only politician for whom "hard work" means figuring out the right people to know or getting access to large piles of cash. Shrub is, like, a total loser. He couldn't cut it in business but he could cut it in politics where, apparently, skill at governance is less important than skill at schmoozing. So he took Daddy's money and political connections and went from zero to Texas governor. Then he was packaged by political operatives and sold to the electorate who appears to be more interested in the packaging than the product. Look at where that got us.
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Wait till giuliani gets his swipes at her.
Gender schmender. giuliani will make Lazio (the other political male woman basher) look like a friggin' cake baker. If she doesn't get a tougher skin pronto she's going to become part of the neocon recipe for "cooked goose". Maybe even "yellow cake"...
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@ Jeffrey P. Harrison
"Three names." Wow, that is insulting. To refer to Hillary Rodham Clinton as "three names" is sooo bad! Do you really mean to pour scorn on her simply because she chose to retain her maiden name as part of her name? Is that really defensible? Did you refer to George Herbert Walker Bush as "four names?"