Sad But True: Hillary Clinton’s Thankless Job

Marie Cocco at RealClearPolitics describes well – and with poignancy - what Hillary Clinton faces this evening in Denver and how she most likely will handle the situation:

“Hillary Clinton will be damned if she looks too methodically perfect, too much the purveyor of practiced routine and not enough the cheery personification of enthusiasm. She'll also be damned if she's too exuberant, too obviously raising her voice in unbridled exhortation for the team. She will either be deemed too cool or all-too-cagily warm.

“Clinton can't win Tuesday evening. But then, she knows that.”

“She is set to address the Democratic National Convention in Denver to give the valedictory address of her 2008 campaign -- a race in which she went further than any woman in American history toward the elusive goal of electing a woman to the White House. But this is a speech that is also meant to soothe her bruised supporters and get them to support Barack Obama, a man who -- for not a few of them -- has brazenly overtaken the more-qualified woman to grab the prize and in so doing has writ large the story of their own lives.

“Clinton is a woman who knows how to lose -- to lose any shred of privacy, to lose face, to lose any expectation of being treated with a modicum of respect by the talking heads in the media and now, to lose a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination that she expected to win. As if to heap insult upon injury, the Obama campaign let it be known that it did not for a minute seriously consider Clinton as a running mate, notwithstanding the 18 million votes she earned during the primaries and her demonstrated ability to win over white, working-class voters who remain cool to Obama and are necessary for victory in the fall. Those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling that the Obama forces conceded could gain a reference in the party's platform are, apparently, just words.

‘“In her 2003 memoir ‘Living History,’ this is how Clinton described her reaction to her earliest political loss, during her senior year in high school: ‘I ran for student government president against several boys and lost, which did not surprise me but still hurt, especially because one of my opponents told me I was 'really stupid if I thought a girl could be elected president.' As soon as the election was over, the winner asked me to head the Organizations Committee which, as far as I could tell was expected to do most of the work. I agreed.’

‘“The work of the next phase of Clinton's career has been going on doggedly, and often with little notice, since she suspended her campaign on June 7. She's been a campaign emissary for Obama to the Sheet Metal Workers union, to Hispanics and others in New Mexico and Nevada; to older women in South Florida who still haven't quite accepted the loss of what may be for some of them their last chance to see a woman elected president. The June speech Clinton made in departing from the race was, among Democratic activists, ‘probably the most seen, talked about, buzzed about speech of the campaign,’ says Mike Lux, a consultant for Democratic interest groups and an Obama supporter. It went over well, even among Obama loyalists.

“That tends to be how Clinton does things. The public Clinton doesn't usually show hints of the private pain that burns inside.

“The same cannot be said of some of her supporters, who can be expected to stage at least a few demonstrations of their fury at the outcome of the race, and at what they perceive as repeated displays of disrespect Obama has shown their hero. It is not lost on them that in selecting Joe Biden to be the vice presidential nominee, Obama has chosen a Washington insider who voted in favor of the Iraq War -- two of the sustained attacks on Clinton that Obama used to devastating effect during the primaries.

“The television cameras will linger on angry and tearful Clinton delegates in the convention crowd. The commentators will no doubt take this as a demonstration of disunity -- and not a few will, of course, blame Clinton.

“But it is usually the job of the party nominee to build unity once a vanquished rival has conceded and made the right gestures. Unless the loser happens to be a woman. Then it's just like high school, and she must do the work.”

Women’s Rights Advocate Tears Up Her Invitation to Obama Fundraiser

As women’s rights advocate Gloria Feldt explained at the Huffington Post today, she has joined the chorus of those who have been experiencing misgivings lately about supporting Barack Obama. In fact, Feldt says she just tore up her invitation to an Obama fundraising event this evening, having decided not to donate $4600 to his cause.

Feldt had initially found her way to Obama from Hillary Clinton’s suspended campaign :

“I supported Hillary Clinton in the primary because I believe she's the most capable of meeting the enormous challenges the next president will face undoing the damage to women's rights, health, and justice caused by Bush. Still, I've admired Obama since I met him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Later, in Washington after he was elected to the Senate, I sensed he was genuine in his commitment to women's equality. So, despite my still-raw feelings about Hillary's concession, I was prepared to go forward this week and commit full support to Obama.”

The former Clinton supporter describes her gathering misgivings about the Dems’ recently selected presumptive nominee:

“During the last two weeks, the thunderclouds of doubt have gathered ever more ominously until they cast Obama's character into serious question. First there was a distant rumbling in his sudden support for FISA, followed by his support for the Supreme Court's ruling expanding the right to handguns. His statements about religion in public life and intentions to expand faith based funding programs were nervous making, though he did temper his comments with talk of Constitutional protections for church-state separation.

“By the time he spoke to an evangelical group, sounding for all the world like he was withdrawing his long held opposition to the Federal abortion ban by running, not walking, down the slippery path of parsing what reasons for abortion the law may deem acceptable or not -- infantilizing woman and devaluing their moral capacity and human right to exercise it -- I was seriously questioning whether this man would have the necessary mettle to withstand any challenges at all. Or worse, is he just another politician swaying with the winds and running for cover at the hint of a little thunder?”

Feldt says the last straw for her was Obama’s quote about sex education as it appeared in Relevant Magazine:

“Obama: I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions...”

Feldt concludes:

“In the big picture, Obama's character begins to appear as someone who is quick to deflect, demur, defer to his challengers. The dreaded flip-flopper, whom voters always see as a loser. When the frame is focused on reproductive rights and health specifically, we see a candidate who is either uninformed (not likely) or speaks with an unacceptable lack of moral center about abortion, sex education, and family planning.

“I truly hope Obama will have sense enough to come in out of the rain of his self-induced controversy and recognize that he's a lot more likely to persuade women like me to support him than he is to get the votes of those who press for him to betray his previously stated pro-woman principles and will almost certainly abandon him at the ballot box anyway.

“For now, he has a long way to go to convince me my $4600 would be a good investment.”