STEADY AS SHE GOES
Hillary Clinton showed she’s the right woman for the job, besting Donald Trump in the first presidential debate.
Just before Monday’s pivotal U.S. presidential debate began, filmmaker Michael Moore (and surprisingly few others) pointed out on Twitter: “There is NO way to overstate this massively historical moment: The 1st woman to take this stage in over 225 years.”
I had done my prep work for this gendered split-screen moment, contacting a small group of women in Canada and the U.S., Clinton supporters, and asking them predebate to send me one word that summed up how they were feeling. (I later asked them post-debate for one word.)
“Dread, nausea, freaked, agitated, scared, anxious to the point of not watching, worried and cynical,” is what I got pre-debate. Wow, some of these words medically describe how many women feel on the verge of a heart attack.
Were we over-identifying with Hillary Clinton, seeing the first female presidential candidate as a stand-in for ourselves? It felt as though we all were about to enter that debate stage.
If we were, we were a sorry bunch indeed. There didn’t seem to be any confidence that Democrat Hillary Clinton, polished, experienced, wonkish and prepared, could take down Donald Trump, the GOP’s raging race-baiting id, the antipolitician who has lied, bullied and verbally battered his way to within an inch — or at least a few polling points — of the White House. We were wrong. Clinton delivered a terrifically steady (yes, steady matters in light of her opponent) performance, both presidential and warm, smiling throughout as her opponent yelled, sniffed (what was that about?) veered off topic, became petulant and hostile, interrupted (at least 29 times) and appeared to be unsteady in his answers and his demeanour.
In contrast, Clinton herself was a living answer to the temperament question. As the ever-feisty Bette Midler tweeted: “Oh, look, Hillary brought her friends Sanity and Experience to the debate.”
She kicked Trump’s butt in three significant ways that she should continue to employ the rest of the campaign:
1. By unapologetically being her wonkish, detail-oriented self, which led to one of the best lines of the evening: “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate,” Clinton said. “And yes I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president.”
2. By not descending totally to her opponent’s cartoonishly angry and woefully unprepared level, letting him interrupt constantly while she went full Benghazi hearing, stoically waiting out the craziness. In doing so, she invoked Michelle Obama’s now famous line: “When they go low, we go high.”
3. By appearing in her own improbable way to be fresh and refreshed — fully presidential, a woman ready to get to work on behalf of her country.
In fact, Clinton may have clinched her vote with the majority of female voters of all political stripes as Trump unsurprisingly revealed himself to be the kind of boor that few women want in the same room with them, let alone as their president.
“This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs,” Mrs. Clinton said as a debate closer, detailing his often appalling and even weight-shaming treatment of women. Note to strategists: the gender card works because, guess what, it’s life!
We await the polls, but in a direct head-to-head contest with Trump, Clinton may have made America like her and trust her in a way that she hasn’t been able to before.
But those anxious pre-debate words from some women also indicate a deeper feeling of dread that Clinton could have been perfect and it still won’t be enough, partly because many Americans desperately want to shake up the system and partly because as a woman she’s criticized unfairly.
Take one response of commentator and former Bush speech writer David Frum, no Trump fan, who tweeted: “Who told Hillary Clinton to keep smiling like she’s at her granddaughter’s birthday party?”
Do I need to point out how asinine, infuriating and sexist this comment is and how ironic, given that Clinton, during a recent town hall about defeating Daesh, was roundly criticized for not smiling enough? When mild-mannered moderator Lester Holt tried to get Trump to explain why he had said Hillary didn’t “look presidential” Trump pivoted to claim Hillary didn’t have “stamina,” a clearly problematic charge as Clinton seemed to gain in vitality and strength during the 90-minute debate while Trump began to flail like a blowfish puffed up to breathe but not getting enough to keep him going.
Clinton nailed Trump’s stamina question: “As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, and a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina,” she said.
I have always worried about Clinton’s authenticity problem. But during the first debate she seemed very much in her own skin, and happy to be there — a smart, experienced public servant who can’t wait to get to work. So what words came from my anxious group of women post debate? “Relieved (times two), heartened, hopeful, positive.” But also “discouraged (that Trump could be seen to have done well at all), concerned and wary.”
I’d say I felt all of the above and one other thing: impressed. It’s easy to swagger up on stage and unleash your bluster and ego on the watching world. Much harder to calmly convince a nation that, when it comes to the presidency, “I’m your woman.” Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson @sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson
During the debate, Hillary Clinton seemed very much in her own skin, and happy to be there — a smart, experienced public servant who can’t wait to get to work