Leave Hillary out of this!

Senator Barack Obama did a rather good job on May 6th. He clobbered Senator Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, I state where I volunteered for the Obama campaign. Sen. Obama also put up a spirited fight in Indiana, where he lost by 14,000 in an election that cast over 1.3 million votes, a mere 1%!

Mathematically speaking, Senator Clinton has a small, nay, impossible chance to make up the difference in terms of pledged delegates and those over analyzed superdelegates in the remaining 6 democratic primaries. Thus, while there is certainly a symbolic aspect to Sen. Clinton's continued efforts through June, she will not win the Democratic nomination to be President of the United States.

That being said, there have been varying strains of debate within the pundit class about whether or not Sen. Clinton should continue, how should could continue her campaign, how she should concede to help unify the Democratic party, etc. I want to focus on the debate surrounding the calls to have Sen. Clinton leave versus the few voices of dissent that prod her forward.

The most upsetting essay I read was from Ellen R. Malcolm, the founder and President of Emily's List. She published an essay called "Quitters never win" in the Saturday edition of the Washington Post. She makes a spirited defense of Hillary's significance to feminism and womens' rights, but makes the absolutely erroneous declaration that "here we are in the fourth quarter of the nominating process and the game is too close to call". No, Ellen. It's game over! And no one wants to see Sen. Clinton embarrass herself and all that she's done by forcing an overtime that will not alter the mathematical victory of Sen. Obama.

This betrayal of her argument is incredibly upsetting. I consider myself an ardent feminist. I love women and I objectify them and have committed all the sins of the classic misogynistic male. But I know that our country will do better when women and other marginalized group seeks and receives the many gifts of civilized society. However, I do not approve of any advocate using false arguments to make their case more convincing than it is. That is hope-peddling at its worst and ultimately undermines the cause.

That being said, even if Ellen where to delete that particular line from her essay, she still has a contextual fallacy that is not fully acknowledged. What Ellen does not realized is that she's making a general election argument. Yes, Hillary has a strong, progressive campaign that is in stark contrast to McCain's dream of a resurrected Bush Presidency. And her symbol as a female commander-in-chief will provide so much more hope and promise to the 3 billion women that currently occupy our globe. But Ellen, we're talking about a DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY! You cannot make general election arguments about a primary election! It is just illogical! And I'm sorry, but while people love Al Smith, Geraldine Ferraro and Joseph Lieberman as the first Catholic, Women and Jew nominated on a presidential ticket, no one remembers or appreciates their conduct during the primary campaign. They appreciate and admire their groundbreaking work in the general election. Hillary's symbolic role that Ellen believes is happening, historically speaking, can only be true within the context of a general election and not party primary.

Thus, Ellen, a declaration to you: Your quote that you "believe Hillary also has a responsibility to play the game to its conclusion. For the women of my generation who learned to find and channel their competitiveness, for the working women who never falter in the face of pressure, for the younger women who still believe women can do anything, Hillary is a champion." is the wrong argument to make at this time. Please stop! This has nothing to do with Emily's List. This, on the surface, appears to be you making a sycophantic plea in order to display your unconditional loyalty to Hillary Clinton. Good for you, Ellen. But don't drag the Democratic Party and the general election with you. These kinds of false arguments hurt the party, and ultimately the United States of America. I will refuse to allow people like you to be 2008's Ralph Nader! Please STOP!

That being said, there is the other side, the supramajority's side of the argument. They understand the trends in the race are outside Sen. Clinton's control. Some, like Ellen, think this control was unjustly taken away from her. Ellen, sadly, is furthering the feminine stereotype that girls just aren't good at math. But these members of the supramajority, being a large group, have members who are offering dispassionate analysis and those who are perhaps more emotional than rational. Take Bob Herbert's essay in the May 10th edition of the New York Times. He is reiteration the argument that he's been making all throughout primary process: Hillary's only winning strategy is the 'southern strategy' of shoring up white support by playing on African-American stereotypes. However, I did not appreciate the tone of Bob Herbert's May 10th essay. The fact that the monotone Bob Herbert has a tone at all, the paradigm of rational thought itself, the advocate of vanilla issues like living wages and education standards, is perhaps news in itself. But his passion, or anger, has erupted at a poor time as well. Bob writes: "The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame." He writes that Clinton's poor conduct during the primary campaign was foreshadowed during their behavior during Bill's presidency; particularly the last-hour pardons of felons related to the Clinton's familial and social circles. I wholeheartedly agree with Herbert's analysis of Clinton's primary rhetoric. But to tie that in with early, unethical behavior stretches the limits of credulity. Come on, Bob! Sen. Clinton is not running for Jesus Christ. I understand that she was bound to get into something that would be a conflict of interest while her husband was president. Many people do. To be impervious to original sin seems like a poor litmus test for any candidate for office, including the Presidency. What,perhaps, would have made a better argument would have been: Despite her previous behavior, Sen. Clinton refuses to apologize for previous-poor judgment and conduct. Her mirroring of President Bush's sense of righteous immunity and lack of accountability are not qualities that one seeks in any party's presidential nominee. One should not assess Clinton's leadership potential to an absolute level of morality. One should, honestly, evaluate her many personal and professional failings by seeing how she has overcome those obstacles. That is a test of true leadership.

Perhaps that was insinuated in Herbert's essay. But that is clearly not the focal point of his essay. Therefore, instead of hearing Herbert imploring us to take an honest assessment of Clinton's heart, he does what poor pundit's do: Only see the flaws in your opponent and harp on them like they are the defining quality of their character. For some, that is true. But I refuse to believe that someone as accomplished as Sen. Clinton is just a self-destructive ladder-climber.

In closing, the problem with both Ellen and Bob's essays are that they are not really about Sen. Clinton. They're not about the election. They seem to reflect the personal biases of the authors rather than that what the authors has hoped to reflect from society's in their essays.

The winner for that prize of an honest assessment of the dynamics of the election goes to Susan Faludi, author of “Backlash,” “Stiffed” and “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.” Her essay, titled: "The Fight Stuff", tries to explain the rise of Clinton's share of the white, male, working class vote throughout the primary season. I think because she traces the trend of feminist crusaders in American History and pulls away from the personal conduct or value of the candidate, she illuminates the external environment in order to illuminate Clinton's position within history. This is an austere counterpoint to the other essays, which zooms in on Hillary's conduct and symbolism to such a degree that their analysis further blinds the reader to her actual role and place within this primary, the general election and American history. For her prescient analysis, I give a round of applause to Faludi.

....

In many years from now, this will look like an amateurish rant. And history's fact will bore out that argument. But right now, this is how I feel.

Citation:

Ellen R. Malcolm's Quitter's Never Win

Bob Herbert's Seeds of Destruction

Susan Faludi's The Fight Stuff