“To my supporters, to my champions — to my sisterhood of the traveling pant suits — from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you because you never gave in and you never gave up. And together we made history.” Have you ever heard Chris Rock’s stand-up riff about folks who want massive props from everyone for doing things they were supposed to do anyway? (“I take care of my kids! I’ve never been to jail!“) This, in a nutshell, was my impression of Sen. Clinton’s guilt-trip call to her remaining supporters last night, which — I doubt few will be surprised — I found mostly self-centered wallowing, and all in all a missed opportunity. [Transcript.] Following the address, the media were mostly sent into paroxysms of adulation for the Senator’s remarks, with my old employer leading the charge on CNN. I’m not sure we watched the same speech. OMG, she tepidly endorsed the winner of the Democratic nomination? She’s supposed to.
Now, if you’re here, you probably already know my feelings about Senator Clinton’s candidacy this past spring, how it went negative early in a fit of panic and poor planning, how it was distended beyond all proportion well after the fight was already over, how it appropriated GOP talking points for its own purposes and needlessly gave the McCain campaign all manner of soundbites (which it is now happily having the media play for them.) I just can’t take Sen. Clinton seriously as some tribune of the working class, particularly given she’s had someone waiting on her hand and foot since 1978, when she became First Lady of Arkansas. Nor do I buy into her recent “I’m Every Woman,” Shiva, Shatterer of Glass Ceilings routine: Even notwithstanding her behavior amid the various bimbo eruptions over the years, it was Sen. Clinton’s campaign who was the one trafficking in stale, sexist notions of “testicular fortitude” all the time. And it was she, among the candidates for president, who felt the dangerous need to dangle her phantom cajones by talking of “obliterating” Iran and/or Iraq. In all honesty, I think it’s safe to say that many of the suffragettes she’s now taken to invoking would blanche at her campaign’s behavior over the past year.
All that being said, now was the time for unity, yadda yadda yadda, so I went into Clinton’s speech with a relatively open mind. But then, true to form, she started talking about herself…again…and she just wouldn’t stop. The line people are keying into as some massively impressive act of self-abnegation is this: “I want you — I want you to ask yourselves, were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him?…Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?” Now, I know I’m not one of the um, hundreds, of Dems who are finding it so hard to get over Sen. Clinton’s inability to manage a campaign this past spring that I’ll vote for McCain as a result. But this, to me, is a grossly self-absorbed way of endorsing Barack Obama for president, one fully in keeping with what we’ve come to expect from the Senator from New York.
Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton said nothing to atone for her lamentable, injurious, and unnecessary commander-in-chief digs of a few months ago. She praised John McCain’s personality without saying much, if anything, nice about Barack Obama. Basically, the sum total of her argument last night was “Barack Obama is the lesser of two evils, and he almost’s as good as me, so get behind him.” Forgive me for not finding that much of a rousing call to unity.
I don’t know why “women of a certain age” project onto her, I don’t really understand her appeal at all. However, it’s clear that a lot of people are caught up in her “struggle” emotionally, and that the fuel that has been carrying her (and them with her) is her massive ego. So that being said, I think it would have been a strategic mistake for her to give a truly concessionary speech, as it would have been so completely out of character that it would have rung false. At least her saying “he’s not me but he’ll do” is completely in character. If by doing that, she can get her pant-suit army to pull the lever magnanimously for Obama, even if we have to pat them on their little backs and tell them how brave they’re being, I guess I’m fine with that. It’s obnoxious, but that’s politics.
I thought that the speech was well-delivered, though at times my wife and I were commenting on the “I… I… I…” thing as well. I would say that I found her comment to her supporters about whether they were supporting her or the marine, the woman with cancer, etc., to be really good. It’s a oddly personal thing with so many of these people. It shouldn’t be, but it is, and I think she was addressing that.
My main complaint, though I didn’t think about it at the time, is that she didn’t do more to makeup for the commander and chief attacks she made during the campaign, especially as the McCain campaign has almost stopped making ads and is just running hers.
Except for that, though, I think it was good and probably will help heal those wounds (even though they never should have existed in the first place).
Following the address, the media were mostly sent into paroxysms of adulation for the Senator’s remarks, with my old employer leading the charge on CNN. I’m not sure we watched the same speech.
Well, they were the target audience, since they’re the ones who have invented the PUMA problem from whole cloth to begin with, so on that level it’s a huge success. If the coverage of those couple-hundred loonies goes away, the problem goes away. Hopefully she succeeded at least in doing that. Though I hate that most of this convention has been devoted to refuting smears and specious media-invented sideshows instead of pushing our own vision(uh, assuming we have one) and hammering McCain. We need a lot more like Schweitzer, Ledbetter, and (totally surprised to be saying this, but his speech was great) Kucinich and a lot less damage control. Not that we had a choice at this point, but it does show how far we have to go with messaging and the media.
I have almost stopped stopping by given the vitriol you spew at Hillary whom I supported. Now at least I can stop, not because you are mean spirited, but rather because you have proven that there is no reason in you but your own ego. This patronizing drivel is beneath any serious politico. I can hardly take seriously this pedantic rant without recalling my own mother suggesting that when someone points a finger they have three pointing back at themself. Wake up boy. If you want more, begin with accept what you are given, and end with learning to earn it.
To be honest, Heather, if you really find Sen. Clinton — and her ridiculous behavior this cycle — as beyond reproach as your comment would seem to suggest, I’m surprised you even stuck around this long.
Nevertheless, I calls ’em as I sees ’em, and I thought last night was another dismal case study in Clintonian self-absorption. If that opinion makes me patronizing, pedantic, a poor politico, etc., so be it. At least I’m hanging myself with my own rope.
In any case, thanks for dropping by, and best of luck to you.
This may come a surprise, Kevin, given my love of politics, but I didn’t even watch the speech last night. I figured I knew what she’d say, and thanks to YouTube and the transcript, I wasn’t too far off. I think most of your commenters — and you — are right. I especially agree with Eric, and am not sure that anything else except total self-absorbtion would’ve been convincing.
I must confess to you that I’ve been holding my breath not for this Clinton speech — but for the one we’ll hear tonight. I won’t be missing it.
couldn’t listen to Hillary. it’s always the same old sad story. check out Nora Ephron’s blog.
Agree with Kevin as usual. Bill’s speech tonight should be entertaining whereas Hillary is so predictable. The clown husband and the preacher wife. Hmm politics, the lowest denominator. We should all be praying to the gods and thanking the Universe that someone like Barack (and Michelle) is willing to step into this arena. or maybe not. Only time will tell the story. In the end we have very little control outside of our own backyard, but we can vote. And we can hope.
Thanks Kevin for your blog.
I’m thrilled that Senator Clinton honored the suffragettes, including Harriet Tubman, who was as ardently involved in the suffrage struggle as she was in the Underground Railroad.
But most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.
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Kevin, I gotta poke my head up and say you’re wrong, wrong, wrong about this one. She had to talk about herself in this speech, because that’s what her supporters wanted to hear about. Their feelings are hurt and they wanted validation that they did something special together. Did they? Well, that’s arguable, since yes, it was a damnably slimy campaign. But they’re proud of it anyway, for whatever their reasons, and they needed closure. I think she gave that.
I was honestly very impressed by the speech, but I’ve always had a hate-the-sins and still-kinda-like-the-sinner-despite-myself approach to Hillary. I think she would’ve made a pretty acceptable President, it’s just a shame that she was running against a much, much better one.
The next few weeks will tell the real story, but despite the last desperate gurgles from the press (body language! Tense negotiations! etc.), this speech has most likely killed the PUMA stories dead, and I think that’s worth suffering through twenty minutes of whatever self-aggrandization you perceive to have been on display.
I’m struck by Virginia’s use of “beautiful” and “gorgeous” in the same paragraph, to describe suffragettes. I mean I like a little T & A as much as the next guy, but isn’t one of the points of the women’s movement to de-couple a woman’s worth from her physical attributes? Do we need that to sell the story?