I recently received some interesting and timely correspondance from a questioning reader. She writes,
“I have spent some time this summer talking to my mom and her friends about politics. These older women, mostly of Hillary’s generation, say that they see her as the most unethical of the candidates, someone who would lie and cheat and stop at nothing to get her way. No matter how much they would like to see a female in the White House, they would never vote for Hillary. I think that most people would agree that political candidates in general are far less moral than we would like. Is Hillary really any worse than the others?”
These questions are timely because they remind me of a recent cover story in The Nation, which focuses exclusively on the way women, and more specifically feminists and/or her generational peers, view Hillary Clinton. The article addresses many of the questions that my reader asks.
So, is Hillary really more unethical or ruthless than the other candidates?
Listening to an episode of Fresh Air on NPR with Jeff Goodell the other day, I heard that, in spite of a evidence to the contrary (like League of Conservation Voters’ naming him as their candidate of choice), Barack Obama’s stance on the environment is actually a bit contradictory. On the one hand, he advocates reduction of dependance on Middle Eastern oil. But in order to do this, he supports the US’s continued reliance on coal to generate electric power with coal-to-liquid programs which produce diesel fuel out of coal. What the US public does not consider is that coal-to-liquid conversion produces greenhouse gases and seriously increases the detrimental effects of global warming. So what looks like a good policy on the surface (‘decreasing our reliance on foreign oil’) is actually bad for the environment (increases global warming).
This made me think about the particularly thorny Environment Issue in general. It is one of a few places in which all candidates take a similar stance (no one is ‘anti-environment’, after all, and if you look at most candidates’ websites they have to at least give a symbolic shoutout to the issue). Most of the public, too, has realized the seriousness of the issue, and has some general feelings about conservation. However, in reality, the specific policies which candidates suggest may appear like a good idea, but could be seriously flawed when dissected by an expert such as Jeff Gooddell. The environment isn’t exactly an issue that the average voter can decipher with a gut feeling or moral compass, like they can abortion or gay marriage.
So how does Hillary measure up? Is she really proposing viable solutions, or is she merely making sure to fit in with the public’s newfound post-’Inconvenient Truth’ eco-friendly speculation? Read the rest of this entry »
…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 »
Below is the video in which Hillary announces that she will be running for president. She touches upon her political platform, and does emphasize certain issues which she knows are important to woman voters (see blog posting below, “female voters”). Note that she says she “definately” wants to talk about better healthcare, and also mentions her work fighting for women’s rights and children’s education.
There are two ways in which Hillary could conduct campaign strategy with regards to her gender: she, like other recently elected female politicians, could try to ignore or mitigate her gender and instead focus on issues that speak to her broadest base of voters; in other words, run her campaign as a male candidate would. Her second option would be to try and capitalize on her difference to garner support from voters that she would otherwise not be able to reach.
Hillary seems to be taking a two-pronged campaign strategy, combining both of the above approaches. On the one hand, she is attempting to downplay the fact that she is The Female Candidate, and instead emphasizing that she is running for office because she beleives that she is the best person, irrespective of gender, for the job. On the other hand, however, she is using her gender to play to a very specific audience: the female voter. For example, as the article mentioned below states, she “appears to be splitting the difference, playing up domestic issues that could have a special appeal to women without presenting them as such”. Read the rest of this entry »
In this blog, I hope to explore prevailing stereotypes about female politicians, and chart how they are working for or against Hillary. As the title of this blog suggests, I want to know: are we ready for a female president?
Although it is often hard to get past Hillary’s significance as The Female Candidate in the upcoming elections, one must remember that her gender identity interesects with all of her social and political ones as well. To truly understand Hillary and the phenomenon of a female running for the office of president, I will try to also address her entire political persona: her stands on the issues, her popularity ratings, her trips and her speeches. However, in the end, since gender is the one part of her persona that Hillary cannot feasibly alter, I’d mainly like to explore the following question: will Hillary’s gender be the decisive factor in her victory or loss?
