A classmate of mine recently found this Media Matters article which discusses the sexist nature of MSNBC’s coverage of the first presidential debate.
Click on the link above– the story and transcript of the coverage speak for themselves.
Archive for April, 2007
Is she too ’strident’?
While I was listening to NPR show which was discussing the presidential hopefuls this morning, one caller mentioned that reporters and pundits often used the word ’strident’ when describing Hillary. He was angry because he thought that this word was extremely sexist; he viewed ’strident’ or ’shrill’ as demeaning words that society used to describe women who it deemed too pushy or insistent in their views.
I decided to do a bit of research and see if this caller was right– did the media, in fact, use these two words more often when describing Hillary than other candidates?
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Hillary challenges “don’t ask, don’t tell”
I found out in a recent Des Moines Register article by Tony Leys, that Hillary Clinton has come out to criticize the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that the US army currently holds towards its gay members. While answering a question in Iowa, Clinton stated that gays should be allowed to serve in the army while being open and honest about their sexuality. To drive home her point, Hillary quoted the late Senator Barry Goldwater, saying, “think the question should be not whether you are straight, but whether you shoot straight.”
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Is a Hillary-Obama ticket possible?
I was listening to NPR’s Talk of the Nation today, and one caller asked the question, “If Obama or Hillary Clinton ended up getting the Democratic nomination, would a joint ticket be possible?”
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Hillary: unelectable?
I was reading an interesting blog today “about the politics of reporting– and the reporting of politics.” On it, Greg Sargent dissects and analyzes the way in which reporters and popular newspapers, such as the New York Times, write about politics and political candidates.
In one article, Sargent points out that, when asked about Hillary, most pundits will say something about the impossibility of her being elected because she is “polarizing” and, although she sticks closely to her pretty centrist agenda, this makes her “unelectable”. Sargent debunks this myth with an ABC/Washington news poll showing that Hillary is in fact far more electable than another presidential hopeful, John McCain.
So why the presumed “unelectability”?
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being an insider: a mixed blessing
Is Hillary an insider or an outsider? And does such a status work to her advantage or disadvantage?
As usual, the frustrating answer is: both.
In what CBS news dubs “The Clinton Paradox”, Hillary’s strengths and weaknesses are as changeable as the crowd she is facing on any given day. As the article mentions, “Clinton has to conform to stereotypes and defy them, and she has to run as both the insider and the outsider,” said Marie Wilson, founder of the White House Project, which promotes women running for high office. “She has to show she’s not entrenched in a system that has not been friendly to women, but also that she really knows it and is good at it.”
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the one to beat: it’s always Obama
This New York Times article from today says that Hillary is having a harder time getting the Democratic monetary support that she was counting on. Many thought that because she is married to Bill Clinton, she would be the candidate to whom his fans would naturally shift their support to. However, it seems that Barack Obama is gaining a lot of these votes instead of Hillary. This is reflected in the fact that Hillary has raised $5.7 million less that Obama during the primary season– many of Bill Clinton’s main fundraisers have drifted into his camp.
Let’s get down to business…
…and discuss Hillary’s views on the issues most pertinent to this presidential campaign (according to ontheissues.org).
1) Clearly, the Big One: IRAQ
In October of 2002, Hillary voted to authorize the war in Iraq. Since then, she has become a critic of the way that Bush has handled (or mishandled) the war, but does not recant her vote (it is possible that she holds the course so decisively here because wants to avoid the stigma of a “flip-flopper” that plagued Kerry). Most recently, Hillary has become a proponent of a steady redeployment of troops from Iraq, calling on Iraq’s government to take a more proactive role in the own security. Hillary’s stance on Iraq gets her in trouble more than any of her other views– although she is a moderate Democrat, she often treads dangerously close to the Republican party line. Her stance is hardly what many liberals want to hear, and she is bound to lose a lot of voters here.
In this video, Hillary outlines her stance on Iraq: Read the rest of this entry »
looking good: visual representation of the politician
Like any other people who consistently make an appearance on TV or in magazines, politicians are definately in the public eye in a visual sense. It is no secret that in the United States, we like to elect presidents who are tall (only two presidents since 1908 have been under 5′10″, and most are about six feet), good-looking, and strong– for example, we have no problem electing ex-actors, and FDR concealed the fact that he was in a wheelchair throughout his presidency. Clearly, we live in a culture that does not even feign blindness to physical appearance for any of our public figures– even for those people on whom we rely on (in theory, anyway) for their brains, integrity, and decision-making. The way in which politicians present themselves and are represented in the visual media is very important to their overall image, and plays a strong role in their success.
In everyday life, women tend to spend more time modifying their appearance than men Read the rest of this entry »
Hillary raises $26 million in the first quarter. wow.
Hillary’s campaign has manages to raise $26 million so far, which as this NYT article says, is thrice the amount any candidate has ever raised at this point in the race. The other democratic nominee hopefuls all trail her, with Obama being the only candidate who has not yet announced how much money he has raised. As the article mentions, raising this much money this early in the campaign could signal two very different things: Read the rest of this entry »
