Hillary "Likable Enough"

Hillary is a Moderate, an Experienced Politician, and a Pioneer in Professional Women in the Workforce.

Is That Really So Bad?   Maybe.

A reader in Virginia, Peter Coster,  has been doing on the ground field work in a swing state.  He has been talking with people about politics and keeping note.   He says he would never, ever vote for Trump, but there is something about Hillary that turns him off.

Peter Coster

I was just thinking about what people are saying.  I have never met anyone, repeat anyone, who said they liked Hillary.  Not one.  Everyone said they really hated her.  Not just not liked her, but really hated her.  That explains Trump's rise.  Some people said they liked Trump, others said they didn't like either one.  I'm in that camp.

I can't put my finger on it, but Hilliary is just not likable.  There's something about her that screams 'bitch'.  Would you want her as your professor?  She's like an organic chemistry teacher we had at our school.  She was stupid hard and everyone tried to avoid her."

I understand Peter Coster's point.  He feels some of what I felt when I started this blog 9 months ago and heard her speak in Portland, Oregon.  She seemed so controlled, so professional, so lawyerly.   Competent, but not exactly warm.  I liked her.  It was a fundraiser and I paid money to her campaign to be there.  I saw a pro at work, but wrote back then that I hoped she would become less guarded and would reveal more genuine humanity.

Nice handshake.  Friendly.

Hillary graduated from Wellesley in 1969, when entry of women to law, business, and medical schools was beginning to open up.  Hillary Clinton's core identity is as a professional, an attorney.  She got into Yale Law School when admissions people were deeply skeptical of wasting coveted slots on people who would leave the profession to become a wife and mother.  Hillary worked to prove that she was a person of substance and accomplishment. 

Paula Jones.  Big Hair

Before and during the Bill Clinton presidency she resisted appearing to be "merely" the "little woman."  She took Republican heat for presuming to do more than bake cookies and stand by her man.  She took on a significant--and it turns out hopeless at the time--assignment of creating a plan that assured access to health care for everyone, and got criticized for that.    Monica Lewinsky took away from Hillary the potential for having her role defined as the happy, loving, and loyal wife in a happy nuclear family.  She had exactly one child--enough to so a minimal duty in fertility, but not really abundant motherhood.   She got haircuts, even though the women Bill was rumored to have had dalliances with had big hair.

She made the choice of the new professional woman--presenting themselves to the world as highly competent first and foremost, respectable and valuable because of their work, not their husband, introduced as a full citizen and principal in their own right, not as "the lovely wife of -----".   

There is a risk to this for a woman coming through the system in Hillary's era.   A woman of power--not beauty and grace--who fully asserts her competence can be interpreted to be a "bitch."   

Another reader, Thad Guyer, wrote me saying that Hillary's accomplishments stand on their own as an extraordinary achievement.   Trump's current Instagram attack, where he shows a cigar smoking photo of Bill Clinton paired with two seconds of Hillary's laugh, is intended to de-legitimize Hillary as an advocate for women, but as Guyer notes, Hillary did the most natural and plausible act of a wife whose marriage was threatened by a young interloper: push and shame her away.  Monica was no sweet innocent; she was giving blow jobs to a married man, Hillary's husband.   She would deal with Bill in private, but she had every right to chase Monica away.

Guyer described Hillary's achievements:

Thad Guyer

(1)  Hillary the activist First Lady, perhaps the only one who ever led a major policy campaign on Capitol Hill with health care.  (Not like Betty Ford booze, Lady Bird clean streets, Michelle nutrition.)

(2) Hillary loyalist when her husband's sexcapades threatened not just a "husband", but a presidency.  A strong woman stands with her husband and children right or wrong when under mortal attack, and he was under mortal attack.  Those attacks, in bringing down a presidency, a party, a liberal agenda to slow Reaganism, over mere sexual misconduct, could not have been rebuffed without Hillary standing at his side.  Plus, a wife is fully justified in uttlerly trashing anyone cheating with her husband.  A wife chasticzes him at home, but she is normal and justified in trashing the female cheaters publicly.  Hillary is loyal to those she loves and respects.  

Hillary defended her turf

(3) NAFTA and trade deals, war of domestic violent crime, invasion of Iraq, all in the hindsight of campaigns 10-20 years later, are unpopular now, but all were well intentioned and part of global consensus at the time, and when the fog of a political year dissipates, will be again.  A stateswoman like Hillary does not join the jingoism of sweeping aside institutional progress of the past like Sanders and Trump-- she tries to make corrective actions, to soften the blow of trade deals, to reform sentencing law and incarceration of non-violent prisoners, to lead as Secretary of State to maintain and enhance gains in the middle east in helping Iraq institutions work, supporting populist democratic movement, and getting allies more focused on de-nuclearizing Iran.

(4) Hillary, whose strength and value to our nation has been aimed at bi-partisam centrism, has  indeed been pulled to the left by Sanders and her campaign positions now are crassly portrayed as flip flopping unprincipled shape shifting.  Welcome to the art of politics, and not a single successful president or party nominee has been "above" this, nor can they be.  Sanders and Trump have jointly and in-unison infantalized the electorate who are the extremes have open violent tantrums, and in the norm, are demanding instant toys and candy their parents given them to dull their brains and rot their teeth. What is so remarkable about Hillary is actually how little she indulged this in comparison to her adversaries.

Mentorship in NH: Congratulating a campaign volunteer

(5) Feminist empowerment and leading women by example will be Hillary's lasting contribution, just as its was initiating contribution as a young First Lady.  Her record is nothing but that, and political claims or insidious innuendo that she is play is "the woman card" are sexist at its core.  This has been Hillary's shining and unwavering leadership contribution to America, and her defense of women and efforts to dismantle unequal pay regimes, should be inspiring not subject to any derision or delegitimizing.  The same is true with her black-brown coalition, a coalition that is the demographically unstoppable future of America, and without Hillary who stands alone (Sander gives lipservice to it), young black-browns would be outside politics.  Hillary is teaching them not just to vote, but to organize, develop political skills, and lead responsibly not just rhetorically.
                                                                     - - - -

Hillary Clinton has a dilemma.   The more she shows her competence, the more some people will perceive her as a "bitch."   Thad Guyer's comments are correct in my judgement, but they may not actually help her.

Trump and his lovely wife Melania

Republican women play a different role than does Hillary.   Ted Cruz's wife, Heidi, has an MBA from Harvard and a big job at Goldman Sachs, but played the public role as helpmate to Ted.   

Trump's wife is pure trophy documenting Trump's alpha male virility and power.  His daughter, Ivanka, is model-beautiful, poised, well spoken, and a ceaseless advocate for her father.  These women enhance the man, not themselves.

Men--and women--are familiar with and comfortable with women who are "the lovely wife" accompaniment to a powerful man.  They are less comfortable with the powerful woman, and that is who Hillary is and has always been. 

Not a Bitch any more

Hillary Clinton is in the mold of strong female leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel.   Thatcher was a friend and ally of Ronald Reagan, and was referred to as The Iron Lady.   She is considered a hero by the American right.    Perhaps, thirty years after Hillary leaves office--if elected--Hillary will be referred to with respect as The Iron Lady, but until then she grapples with the burden of being considered a rival to men, powerful in a way that seems overbearing somehow.  She is assertive not deferential.  Trump's assertiveness goes beyond all previous bounds in politics and it is read as "strength".  

Voters are comfortable with Melania, who speaks with a heavy foreign accent and who reports that she spends her days doing pilates.  Voters are less comfortable with Hillary, who spends her days engaging with voters.  Melanie enhances Trump.  Hillary is perceived as henpecking Bill, forcing him to be with his wife instead of where he really wants to be, far away, with someone with big hair.

But Bill is handling his role well, complimenting with earnest croaky voiced sincerity how really splendid his wife is, how competent, how prepared, how ready to be a great president, and this helps a lot.