The mantles of history and of anger
Asterisks, baggage and all, Clinton busts the major-party male monopoly
Let’s consider history for a brief moment, the history Hillary Clinton is finally destined to make as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Her breakthrough is often buried or disregarded. There are many reasons for that, some good and some foolish, some her fault and some not. But the fact remains: A major political party is going to have a woman at the top of the national ticket.
As she put it this week, claiming her victory, “Don’t let anyone tell you that great things can’t happen in America.”
One factor Clinton cannot control is that the nation took what seemed like a far more dramatic and unexpected step in 2008 and 2012, by electing and re-electing a black president. Yet some polls have suggested more resistance to a woman in the White House than to a minority male. In early 2007, 84% in a Gallup poll said they’d be completely comfortable voting for a black president and 77% for a woman. THE PRIVACY ZONE Unless you believe that Hillary should have divorced Bill, her marriage is another entry on the not-her-fault side of the ledger. His rise in politics made her who she is, for better and for worse. Would she have been so secretive, would her default have been to hide and withhold and be as opaque as possible, if the Clintons had not led public lives?
Hard to say. Clinton is a lawyer, trained in the art of selective disclosure. On the other hand, Ken Starr and his irrationally expensive, intrusive, prolonged investigation might have turned anyone into a privacy obsessive. Bill Clinton’s affairs might have had a similar impact long before that.
The marriage has certainly yielded dividends in terms of Clinton’s prominence and what she has been able to accomplish. Still, there’s ample evidence that she would have succeeded on her own. That’s been clear at least since her graduation speech at Wellesley College.
“The Class of ’69 has expressed a desire (for a student) to speak to them and for them at this morning ’s commencement. There was no debate so far as I could ascertain as to who their spokesman was to be: Miss Hillary Rodham,” said college President Ruth Adams. Never mind that at 21, Clinton sounded like Bernie Sanders.
“We feel that for too long, our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible,” said the woman who later ran against Sanders and Barack Obama as the realist in the room. HISTORIC ADVANCE
The point is that Hillary has always been formidable. By now, even with all the asterisks about reflected glory and fame by association, she has put enough points on the board to warrant credit of her own. Clinton might have won her first Senate race in a newly adopted home state because of her celebrity, but she was a conscientious, hardworking senator, and New Yorkers ratified that by re-electing her. And whatever you think of her tenure as secretary of State, there’s no doubt she knows foreign policy.
Like many women, many Democrats and (given their alternative) probably even some Republicans, I wish Clinton did not have so much baggage, so many self-inflicted wounds. I wish she were more straightforward and showed better judgment. I wish I had fewer doubts about what kind of administration she would run.
If she wins, she’ll be measured against Obama, who has spared us personal scandals (and I’d argue political ones as well) for nearly eight years.
Clinton’s asterisks are strung together like a necklace, a long, heavy one that weighs her down like the proverbial millstone. Obama broke through centuries of tradition, prejudice and discrimination with a speed and self–propulsion that electrified voters, even some who opposed him. Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, rising like Obama from modest beginnings, unaided by spouses or parents or siblings, might have been similarly exciting.
Back in the 1990s, Clinton was an undisputed pioneer — a transformational or at least transitional figure who ushered in the era of the first lady as feminist, activist and presidential partner. Now, on the brink of a far more profound advance for women, even if some of us can’t summon unalloyed joy, at the very least we owe Clinton recognition and respect. She’s done it. She’s made history.