Not Supporting Sen. Clinton and Sexism

Supporters of Sen. Clinton often argue that she is being mistreated by the media and the public because of overt sexism. Robin Morgan’s Women’s Media Center article forcefully makes this argument: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html.

While some individual arguments may have merit, overall, this article shows the ease to which individual, valid critiques of Hillary can be spun as sexist attacks. For example, she argues:

If Hillary was being criticized for Bill's infidelity (something that has nothing to do with this campaign), I would agree. But Hillary's campaign made a decision to have Bill act as her surrogate and campaign for her in South Carolina. He was in the state almost constantly for the week before the election, while she was rarely there; he essentially gave her concession speech. Hillary's campaign clearly made the decision that Bill should take a more visible role in the state because of Bill's previous popularity with black Americans and the number of blacks in the state. That decision and generally using Bill to make campaign speeches for her, makes it completely valid to criticize Hillary for actions Bill takes on the campaign trail. Bill has said some pretty harmful things during this campaign (ie "Jesse Jackson won in 1984 and 1988, just like Obama did;" "it's a fairy tale that Obama opposed the Iraq war."); when he's acting as her spokesman, then I can't see how it's sexist to criticize Hillary for his words. That said, to Hillary's credit, her campaign has done a better job of making sure Bill stays on message after the South Carolina debacle.

For the record, I do not support Hillary for three reasons.

1) Her vote for the Iraq war.

There’s not much more to add to previous observations that this vote lacked either judgment or political courage to stand up for her true convictions.

2) Campaign tactics in South Carolina and her failure to own up to them.

Bill’s behavior cited above gives credence to the notion that the Clintons will do whatever it takes to win, regardless of serious incidental harm to others (in this case to a potential democratic candidate in a general election).

3) Her arguments that the Michigan and Florida primary votes should count towards her delegate count and that superdelegates should support her even if she has fewer delegates, won less states, and loses the popular vote to Obama.

These positions are utterly indefensible. From a party that argued (improperly, in my opinion) that George W. wasn’t a valid president because he lost the popular vote in 2000, it is absolutely amazing that Hillary could essentially argue that the results of fairly held primaries (i.e. every primary other than FL and MI) across the country don’t mean anything, whereas the votes of 800 or so superdelegates should determine the nomination.

I suspect that many people who oppose Hillary, oppose her for similar reasons. I challenge anyone to tell me how any of these reasons are sexist.

-Law Dude