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Go Home End-of-the-line Quote Of The Day

JUNE 3, 2008

End-of-the-line Quote Of The Day

From Richard Cohen's condemnation of the Democratic primary, which, of course, ends today:

Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will
choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome
phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has
eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality
that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined
than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge
that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine
days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then.

When you talk to junior-level campaign staffers, you often hear about how Iowa, in retrospect, now seems like this sort of prelapsarian place, where whites voted for blacks and men voted for women and everything just seemed so much simpler.

--Eve Fairbanks

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16 comments

Yeah, because if this primary hadn't highlighted America's latent racism and misogyny, everything would have been perfect.  If you can't see something, it doesn't exist -- right?!

- ratnerstar

June 3, 2008 at 9:14am

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Anyone who didn't think that either would (and still does) have their own albatross of hateful people to deal with was imbibing illegal substances.  This has been clear to me since the beginning and why I've always thought the two together on a ticket would be doomed to failure.  The protracted race for the past few months, entirely based in Clinton's mind as valid, has been the part I really wish had not happened.  It's created a pocket of truly bitter people who believe their party has betrayed them - all do to the Clinton's manipulation of facts.  Shame on them.  This will be their legacy, and nothing else.

- WaltB

June 3, 2008 at 9:19am

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And it is all so much unmitigated foolishness.  

Honestly, between Cohen and the junior-level campaign staffers, I don't know who is more mendacious.  How truly naive were these people to think that back in January this was going to sail along on the breeze of mutual respect, admiration, and whatever other pipe-dreamy descriptive you can use.  Cohen should have known better, but his judgment has been fatally flawed for quite some time.  I guess I can excuse the staffers, as idealism is the first requirement to work for a campaign, especially at their pay (or lack thereof) scale.

It is all nonsense, though.  Campaigns, as they have been for quite some time (I believe since at least 1800) are notoriously dodgy affairs, filled with ugliness and contempt for the people, the process, and every other component part.  We know this.  The Darwinian survive (not the strongest, the best able to adapt (which is the Democratic campaign in a nutshell, Clinton never adapted, ever).  To argue that this was going to be different (especially now, using their special, magical 20/20 hindsight) is beyond the pale.  It is the worst form of golden-aging, arguing that all was delightful and idyllic in the perfect past, and we have corrupted such a perfect world of chocolates and puppies.  Bleh.

Sorry, I may be idealistic about a great many things, but political campaigns are not one of them.

- kgrant1054

June 3, 2008 at 9:28am

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The only reason that the racism and misogyny were in full view were because there is a black man and a white woman competing for the nomination--either way a barrier was going to get smashed. 45 years ago racial ugliness was on full display in the South, but we are a better nation for having seen it and dealt with it (even given what remains). One hopes that, 45 years from now, people will look back over a similar level of progress at 2008.

- cleavet

June 3, 2008 at 9:34am

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The only reason that the racism and misogyny were in full view were because there is a black man and a white woman competing for the nomination--either way a barrier was going to get smashed. 45 years ago racial ugliness was on full display in the South, but we are a better nation for having seen it and dealt with it (even given what remains). One hopes that, 45 years from now, people will look back over a similar level of progress at 2008.

- cleavet

June 3, 2008 at 9:34am

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Perhaps there is some good that can be made of all of this.  I was struck by the video of the Manhattanite who called Obama an "inadequate black man", which smacked of Queens native Geraldine Ferraro.  It lays bare the degree of racial bitterness in areas other than the South, which has for so long been cast off a racist hick-ville, and for many years, has been beyond the reach of progressive campaigners.  Of course, there is no reason progressive values should necessarily be at odds with Southern values--and I mean bona fide environmental and economic values, not the phony "family values"--because more often than not, they complement each other.  

- dylanposer

June 3, 2008 at 10:03am

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What misogyny?  A guy yelling "Iron my shirt?"

I think some women have exaggerated the role of gender in this race - Hillary after all was the runaway front-runner when we started out, and I don't recall anyone challenging her at that time over her gender.  The anger about sexism has risen in the past two months as it became evident that Hillary would lose.  

Any reasonable analysis of the causes of her failure will lead you to conclude that gender was not a factor, unless it actually worked to her benefit.  Isn't it clear that the anger about perceived sexism was whipped up precisely because it helped her cause?  Al Sharpton uses similar tactics - making charges of racism where no real basis exists to support the charge - to maintain his position and notoriety.  It is not an attractive example, but it has been the model for Hillary's desperate misogyny gambit.

The women I know have nothing in common with the diehards of the Clinton campaign who see misogyny as the explanation for Hillary's failure in this race.  They have no intention of voting for John McCain.  They are repelled by the racism ("racial resentment") peddled by that self-righteous bigot, Geraldine Ferraro.  They resent the Clinton campaign's dishonest use of a real problem facing women everyday as a means of explaining away a sloppy, disorganized and dysfunctional campaign.

Barack Obama's victory, and Hillary's outstanding near-tie, stand as monuments to the reasonable liberalism of most Democrats.  Sexism was not an issue in the race, except insofar as some women voted for Hillary just because she is a woman.  Jeremiah Wright and Geraldine Ferraro have shown that racism is still capable of bringing ugliness to the party, but Obama's victory shows we have overcome its power to dictate the outcome.  

Richard Cohen is all wet.  As we will see in November, this nominating process may have gone on too long, but in its course over these past months it proved that we are better than our biases and prejudices.  Lots of men voted for Hillary.  Lots of whites voted for Barack.  There is a lot to celebrate right now - and even more to come in November.

- purcellneil

June 3, 2008 at 10:12am

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Hmmm - by the time I logged in to comment, everything I wanted to say was said already.  Is TNR talkback becoming a "Stepford Obamabots" clubhouse? :-)

Mr. Cohen protests too much.  My dad, a conservative Middle Eastern guy in his late sixties, still supports Mrs. Clinton: he does not like McCain and does not think that Middle America will opt for Mr. Obama.  I myself was all for Mrs. Clinton until South Carolina.  Over the last two weeks I polled my students - bright and engaged law students from all walks of life - and those who cared and followed politics said the same thing: many started with Mrs. Clinton but got turned off by her campaign and turned on by Obama's: the women as well as the men.  

Not scientific, any of this - but far more credible and convincing that the flapdoodle raised by junior staffers.

- icarusr

June 3, 2008 at 10:56am

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purcellneil nailed it:

It wasn't Hillary's vagina that got her into trouble; it was her hubris (as demonstrated by a lame campaign).

- porkido

June 3, 2008 at 11:13am

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Or, Clinton wanted to be elected both as the first female front-runner and as a tough security-first president who would be answering retro red phones with knitted brow and ordering the obliteration of other countries.

Her failure to understand how to bring her own personality and experience to bear upon the political challenge -- and her flimsy no-plan-B campaign strategy -- led to her being in turn strident, pandering, lachrymose, condescending, and bitter.

But never quite stable, never quite a fixed identity.  As the HIRC we knew began to disappear, nobody could figure out what was taking her place.  Whatever it was, it seemed to have no problem imagining the Republican candidate as better for the country than the other Democratic contender.  It would have been difficult in, say, fall of 2007 to imagine anything as pathetic and destructive.

- ironyroad

June 3, 2008 at 11:57am

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Kgrant1054: The glass is three-quarters empty. Cleavet: It is two-thirds full. I will go with cleavet; history and context and optimism are on his side.

- liberal reformer

June 3, 2008 at 12:04pm

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Enough with our party's identity politics fixation.

A pox on both/all your identity houses

- teplukhin2you

June 3, 2008 at 2:21pm

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tep, one of the best ways we can get over our identity politics is to fixate on every single instance as it arises. Its a little zen, but it works; making oneself aware of the thing, then fixating on that thing, helps one to disempower that thing.

- GSpinks

June 3, 2008 at 4:11pm

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Gspinks - no spikka da Zen. Care to translate?

- teplukhin2you

June 3, 2008 at 4:27pm

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Neil, I agree with everything you have said in your post. the only thing is, I do think sexism existed in this primary...as did racism...was sexism the reason hillary lost - abso-fucking-lutely NOT. But to say it didn't exist is to not recognize what women still go through in our society. But, again, it is not the reason why hillary didn't win. And everything else you wrote is spot on.

- mcgumbleton

June 4, 2008 at 1:11am

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Actually, Neil, the following sentence is so spot on it hurts:

"They resent the Clinton campaign's dishonest use of a real problem facing women everyday as a means of explaining away a sloppy, disorganized and dysfunctional campaign."

Yup. Exactly.

- mcgumbleton

June 4, 2008 at 1:13am

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