Presidential Round Table Discussion (Ladies-Only Version)

Kim: I was watching CNN for the NH returns and one of the members of “the best political team on television” actually said, in a tone of voice that implied shock, that maybe democrats actually like Bill Clinton. As if they’d never considered that before. Blew my mind, and made me wonder how a media so out of touch with the people to whom their talking can possibly have any affect on voter opinion. But, we’re talking about people who press and press and press Hillary to respond to questions about her husband’s record, and then turn around and chastise her for “running on her husband’s record.” The media doesn’t seem to know how to cover her campaign. And yet, they don’t seem to have the same issue with covering Obama. We hardly hear any discussion about what it would mean to have an African-American president.

Speaking of evangelicals, I thought it was interesting that the frequent churchgoers voted Obama in New Hampshire, whereas the folks who only go now and then, or who don’t attend, voted in higher percentages for Hillary.

Laura: I think dealing with a serious female contender for the White House is something media isn't used to and it's fascinating to see how it's playing out. Even this conversation we're having now was a quickly cobbled-together reaction to the fact that the original round table was an all-male panel.

While the original panel was clearly keeping the convo fun and light-hearted, it still had a certain creepy, albeit unintentional, "boys club" vibe to it.

Marboreality commented on the New Hampshire primary post:

"Apparently men believe that every woman in New Hamp voted for Hillary because she came near tears the day before the primary. As though they all threw off the months of political discussion and debate and whatever decision they may have made prior to that moment and instead cast their vote for Hillary."

That's something to really watch out for this year, a potential backlash against the media from female voters who might feel frustrated by being typecast as too "emotional" to make informed, intelligent decisions. Not to mention that women are severely outnumbered in the race itself AND in the media dialogue. I wouldn't be surprised if those factors played at least minor roles in Hillary's New Hampshire win. There are, of course, several other factors, including a flawed polling system. But that's a conversation for another time with lots of booze.

Laura: I guess what I was most surprised about regarding the national coverage after the NH primaries was the huge focus on Hillary's comeback and the virtually absent coverage of McCain's. Hillary and Barack had been neck and neck for quite some time and McCain looked all but finished a couple of months ago. He was almost completely out of money and several high-level advisers abandoned his campaign. I wonder if pundits don't see him as a real threat long-term, therefore his comeback is not a real story. Or....why? I don't get it.

But enough with the nuts and bolts of the campaigns, let's start objectifying the candidates. If only I found a single one of them remotely attractive...

Kim: Yeah, but the thing is that Hillary only “came back” because the pollsters claimed she was behind after Iowa. Before Iowa, she OWNED New Hampshire. In fact, all the stories preceding New Hampshire about New Hampshire, before Iowa, were about how Hillary was a sure thing there. She really didn’t come back. If anything, she lost ground.

Katie: I don't have cable, so luckily can't get sucked into much of the punditry. I did, however, think that McCain got quite a bit of coverage on the major networks; to the point where if I see that "We really showed them what a comeback looks like" clip one more time I might explode. But, it seems like the media is more focused on the Dem race in general. Though I can't say I don't understand why: it's sexy! Something other than a bunch of old white guys taking cheap shots at each other!

I'm not a Hillary fan, but I did find it completely ridiculous that after the Iowa caucus, there was all sorts of "Will she ever recover? Should she throw in the towel now?" talk everywhere. This is arguably the most interesting race in a long time, and the fact that they were ready to end it after 24 hours was just asinine. If female voters in NH cast their ballots for Hillary in an attempt to tell the media to fuck off and keep the race interesting, well, I appreciate that, but who really knows.

I don't actually know what to make of the Hillary no-cry thing. Maybe it's because I'm 24 and don't feel like I've really ever been discriminated against because I'm a woman, but the sexism argument just feels completely abstract to me. I mean, I realize that it exists but I don't feel like I could tell you how and where with integrity. Gloria Steinem's NYT piece the other day felt very, very mountain/molehill to me, almost regressive: I just don't relate. In my mind, I can't quite figure out if the media is focusing on the no-cry moment because it does mean something, or if they just keep talking about it because they feel like they should. I don't think I'm articulating this well, but I just don't quite get it.

Back to the Republicans, though; why is the media giving Mike Huckabee a free pass? This guy is FRIGHTENING and all I see on tv is this fun-loving, guitar-playing, good ol' boy who's popular with "the kids." Now THAT scares me.

Laura: I get most of my news coverage online and only check in on TV news for about a half hour to get the gist of their coverage. Online, Hillary dominated every newspaper and TV website, McCain was a side note. That might be an interesting study, to see how a TV news outlet's coverage differs from their own web site's coverage. It would be even more interesting to see how voters cast their ballots in relation to the type of media they consume most often.

It is amazing how much weight is placed on Iowa every Presidential election, regardless of the fact that they almost never vote for the person who makes it to the White House.

As far as Huckabee, it's certainly not a new phenomenon that voters are captivated by personality instead of policy at this point in the game. It seems to me that the candidates of both parties are pretty closely aligned policy-wise with their current competitors, with some slight wonky nuances. So yeah, at this point, personality, charisma, confidence and eloquence all play a huge role in who wins the nomination for each party. He's definitely the most charming on the Republican side. It'll be very interesting to see if Republicans choose charm over national defense experience.

What do you all think about the possible Bloomberg run as an Independent candidate? Do you think there's a chance in our lifetime that a third-party candidate will have an actual shot at the presidency?

Katie: And while we're talking about New Hampshire, Hillary was slaughtering Obama in that race weeks ago ... and he managed to only trail her in the end by 8,000ish votes (and they both received the same number of delegates). That's a big deal, but that wasn't the news.

Laura: Which is why polls should only be used as tools for analysis. Instead they're used to predict the future. I loved the exchange between Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw the other day. Matthews was demanding to know why the NH polls failed them and Brokaw schooled him: "We don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed, and trying to stampede, in effect, the process."

Brokaw, of course, was burned by exit polls about 8 years ago, so he's clearly been humbled by the experience.

Kim: I think the notion that a woman inherently doesn’t have what it takes to be president is something that is very real. There are women who believe it. The prevailing image of an American president is the strong father figure. If you look at the folks who are covering the election on the news, they’re older white men, with a small handful of exceptions. There’s definitely a status quo that dictates how men run their campaigns, which is why they all start to sound the same after a while, and maybe why Obama is appealing so much, because he’s eschewing that. And it’s also why, I think, in part, the media is at a loss for how to cover Hillary: should they hold her to the same exact standards? Are there different standards that allow for the fact that women just biologically approach things differently than men? If so, what are those standards? Who sets them? Hillary? You’d think they’d have considered all this before she ran. Not like her candidacy came out of nowhere. As a supporter, I’ve been supporting Hillary 08 since before 04.

Meanwhile, Hillary’s out there forging new ground, making it up as she goes. People expect different things from women. I’m a lesbian feminist, and I expect different things from women than men. And I’m also a Hillary supporter who has no clue what to realistically expect from a woman president. I know it’ll be a fundamental change, an absolute paradigm shift, maybe even moreso than an Obama presidency. But, what it’ll look like is beyond me. I do believe that women are better managers, better diplomats, better communicators, and better under pressure than men.

As for Laura’s point about a Bloomberg run…I don’t know. I was kind of joking about it with a family member who works for the republicans. His flippancy on the issue indicated to me that maybe it was a silly rumor that would never come to pass, but I guess it has to be taken seriously. I know this: I was living in NYC when Bloomberg came into office, and one of the first things he did was to try to scale back recycling because it created waste. It was the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of in my life, and it was his first major initiative (or at least the first that I remember).

The thing about this race that makes it so nail bitingly delicious is that it’s so up in the air. There are so many good candidates (or were--Richardson could’ve been a contender, had he ever looked awake, and had Hillary and Obama not been running). I think if we have Obama, the best bet for a win is for him to be up against Huckabee or Romney. Huckabee, because they’re both change agents but Obama is the sane one, and Romney because Obama’s niceness will make him look Romney look like a supreme ass. If Hillary’s our candidate, the best bet for a win is for the reps to choose McCain or Giuliani (or Romney). I think Hillary v. Huckabee would rally the reps way too much. The temptation to go evangelical on us would be way too strong. Throw Bloomberg in the mix and, honestly, I think he’ll take the independent and moderate vote away from Obama, and also drain votes from the repubs. He won’t have been in the race long enough to get fully vetted. And yet, I would almost be okay with a Bloomberg presidency. I mean, if the only alternative were any of the republicans. If we have to settle for less than our beloved front runners, I’d rather it be for Bloomberg. Gah, I can’t believe I just typed that.

Katie: Don't get me wrong, I agree that we need to elect a female president and that when we do it'll probably uproot a plethora of prejudices I can't even predict at this point, but I just don't feel a sense of urgency to do it now. Again, I'm young and I feel like I've got a while to elect a woman to the office; I don't necessarily need to support the first serious female candidate out of the gate. Not saying that Hillary supporters are voting on the gender issue alone, but I resent this sentiment that some people are throwing around that I'm not supporting women if I'm not voting for her. (I'm not saying you're saying that, Kim; I've heard it from others)

Obama and Clinton have essentially voted for the same things as senators and want to do essentially the same things if they're elected. I'll vote for Hillary if she's the candidate and I won't have to do it while holding my nose. I wouldn't necessarily want her to be my pal, but she's a brilliant woman and I wouldn't have any serious moral qualms electing her as president.

The luxury of the primary season, though, is that I can be uninhibited in my support for the guy who says lots of idealistic things and gives the speeches that make my heart hurt. Not to mention that he's the one who I feel is furthest away on the spectrum from this bullying, ignorant, frat boy bullshit we've dealt with for 7 years. So my vote for Obama is both a vote for Obama and a vote against everything that is status quo in government right now. I don't feel that same way with Hillary; she's been in this game for years and has been a great senator, but there's something that feels very same-old-shit about her campaign. Again, I'll vote for her in the long run if she gets the nomination, but I'm enjoying being full of "hope" for "change" right now.

Sidenote: Can anyone explain to me what Waterboarding Rudy is doing? He's kind of kissed off all of these initial primaries ... Not that I want to see/hear him, I just don't understand his strategy.

Kim: No, I totally agree with you. It’s absurd to think you’d have to vote for Hillary, or give up your feminist card.

I think Rudy’s tactic is to focus on the states with the most delegates, figuring if he can win CA, FL and NY, he won’t need IA and NH, etc. The republican race is not going to be decided until convention. At this pace, neither will the democratic one.

Tera: If Bloomberg wants to stand a chance in 2008, he needs to make up his mind already! We have seen so much speculation in media about his candidacy that voters are starting to see him as wavering and unstable. Those are not ideal qualities. I would love to see him run, but I really don't think our country holds the right mindset this year to elect an Independent candidate for presidency.

To Laura's comment about McCain as a side note, I couldn't agree more. Hello, hello Mr. McCain. Where are you? All I hear is a dark echo of uninterrupted sound waves bouncing off the Clinton and Huckabee campaigns.

Katie: Can I give the Stranger some kudos for two out of three really great articles on the campaign in this week's issue? (Eli Sanders & Jonathan Raban, specifically) Erica Barnett's defense of Hillary wasn't bad and I think her concerns are totally valid (though I don't agree with this idea that to be a Democrat you must hate Republicans with a certain amount of vitriol) but I didn't find that one to be particularly new or different. I think her and Raban's articles illustrate the two completely different conversations Clinton and Obama supporters are having: one camp is strictly policy and plans (which, of course, if we don't have in the end, we're sehr fucked) and the other is more fascinated with the fact that their candidate seems to be a different sort of being than his peers. I'm not trying to elevate Obama to some sort of deific post here (and I know that he's going to get the shit beat out of him if he doesn't come up with a seeerious, tangible platform like, yesterday), but I completely completely identify with Raban's fascination with Obama's level of genuine introspection and self-awareness and struggle as someone who, to put it maybe too simply, just thinks about things way too damn much. There's something about that that I find really endearing and think if he can be that guy and deliver the goods, then holy fuck we're in for something really different.

Also, I'll just put it out there, I'm a history major whose apartment is a shrine to Abe Lincoln and I cry when I read his Second Inaugural Address and am totally a sucker for lanky brooding dudes who can write their asses off. I'm reading "Dreams From My Father" right now and keep pinching myself thinking that, whether he wins or loses, I'm so lucky to be witnessing a race that Obama's brainpower is a part of. As a writer, man, he is good.

Okay Obama rant for the day is finished! Collecting myself and getting back to work now.

Kim: I don’t know that it’s a different language, so much as just maybe a different set of priorities. I don’t think there’s anyone among us that wouldn’t love to see America and the world go through a sweeping, transformational change as soon as possible. But, and here’s where the buzzwords of “change” and “experience” come into play. You go around the block a few times, you start to understand that with great change comes great responsibility. Now, I understand in toneless email that sounds condescending and holier-than-thou, which is not how I mean it. Where Obama loses me is in the “great responsibility” area. Where he loses me is in not admitting the enormous change that will come from whichever of him or Hillary is elected. Where he loses me is in carefully explaining to those of us who really, really want to be idealists but have become too cynical, how exactly he plans to carry out this transformational change, what he will do when the world naturally responds through the laws of physics, with an equal and opposite reaction. You steer too far in one direction, you’re going to eventually have to steer really far in the other direction to correct your shit. And, while I do believe we are WAY too far in the direction we’ve been headed the past decade or more, I don’t know that a reactionary re-steering is really going to, in reality, bring about the results we so want. If I keep going, I’m going to start repeating my whole argument about “veering” and progress.

But I think that’s the problem. I don’t see much reality in Obama’s campaign. Now, let me qualify here—I’ve defended The Secret. I really believe in the power of visualization and positive thinking. But I don’t necessarily believe it’s a good campaign platform for someone trying out to be the leader of the free world.

I think we’re at a place where we’re all, as Neil Young said, looking for a leader. And, in doing so, maybe we’re getting away from what the job of a president is. At the top of the list is not necessarily “inspirational speaker.” I was a lit major, so maybe I’m off on my estimation of presidential history. Then again, maybe your argument is that maybe we’re at a place where we can redefine the role and expectations of “leader of the free world”? See, even there I see Hillary as the better option. But, then, I’ve already drunk the kool-aid.

Laura: One more quick thing I wanted to mention: Ron Paul.

I have nothing to say about the man or his candidacy, I just thought Seattlest could use the bump in Web traffic from his rabid fan base.

Do you hear me, internet? RON PAUL!