Why Hillary may be down, but not out: Molly Ivins, 1992

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) would no doubt have a few choice words to write about both parties in this election year. If she were still with us, her wit and humor would be a great entertainment during what has become the extended Texas two-step of this 2008 primary season. Back in 1992, when another Clinton was making a run for the Presidency, Ivins wrote the following shortly after the Republican convention in Houston. A large portion of the article, excerpted here and which originally appeared in The Nation, concerned itself with reasons why the GOP seems so out of touch with women voters. Hillary even rates a mention, with a then-infamous quote that the Republicans -- in characteristic character-assassination mode -- then tried to use against her.

What seems ironic now, from 16 years on, is how similar the American political landscape sounds as described by Ivins. The faltering economy. The unimaginable health-care system. The exploiting of fear. The Hillary bashing (even if much of it is so far is the party's own self-lacerating partisan bickering -- and what would Molly have to say about that, I wonder?).

The real difference -- and it is real -- is that this time, Hillary's campaign offers a challenge to a big voting base that Obama can't match, with all his charm and charisma. She offers to women voters of both parties a chance to step out of the marginal social and political fringes that the GOP has boxed them in for years. It's not about feminism or women's rights or soccer-mom security: she's got guts. Hillary's been through a hell of a lot, and most of it on very public display. She ought to get the vote for the sheer audacity of hanging in there with Bill: the GOP values voters should give her at least that. And like it was said of Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, she did it all backwards and in high heels, for eight solid years. Every aspect of her life, from Whitewater to Travelgate, to "the meaning of is," has been discussed not just in public but in Senate hearings. Being the Senator from New York? That was a piece of cake. Yep, she's got guts. In the privacy of the election booth, for a lot of women who don't consider themselves feminists, that's going to count for a lot -- even for those who never heard John McCain's 1998 joke: Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.

As Molly might say, it's a wonder Hillary doesn't go and slap the taste out of the man's mouth.

And she is still in the race. The fact that Hillary continues to poll in high numbers as the primary season rolls on is evidence of an inner strength -- some would call it hubris -- that primary voters are responding to. Say what one will about political machinery, she takes what others dish out and keeps on rolling. She's not a quitter, even in the face of Obama's youth-oriented campaign, or the viciously mean-spirited websites against her that multiply daily. Her recent offer of a Clinton/Obama ticket is pure theater, made for the thrill of the race. Like Molly Ivins herself, Hillary doesn't seem to mind some mud on her shoes before it's all over. That's a good thing, because the mud's only going to get deeper before November.

Excerpted from The Nation, September 14 1992:

Nothing like a Republican convention to drive you screaming back into the arms of the Democrats. Especially this convention. The elders of the press corps kept muttering they hadn't seen anything like it since Goldwater in '64. True, the Republicans spent much of their time peddling fear and loathing, but it was more silly than scary, like watching people dressed in bad Halloween werewolf costumes. During the buildup to the convention, the most cockeyed optimists among the Demcrats were in hopes that the Republicans would tear themselves apart over abortion. No need. The party was dead meat on arrival.

I am a cautious political bettor. It's silly to put money down any closer than six weeks out from Election Day, and one should never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to screw up. But the Republicans have nothing going for them and nothing they try works. They got a three-point bounce out of their convention. The in-depth polling shows the great majority of the public didn't care for the gay-bashing, didn't care for the feminist bashing, didn't care for the Hillary bashing and thought the whole exercise was too negative. It was. ...

We have long been accustomed to hearing Republicans exploit racial fears, usually by talking about crime. The "family values" issue is a more subtle exploitation of the doubt, confusion and guilt felt by American women. Women are receiving so many conflicting messages from this society that no matter what choices we make, or more often, what roles necessity forces on us -- work, family, or the difficult combination of both -- we all feel guilty about what we're doing. It's quite true that full-time homemakers resent the condescension in remarks like Hillary Clinton's "What did you expect me to do, stay home and bake cookies?" But this is a society in which people's worth is judged by how much money they make, and the esteem in which society holds wives and mothers is reflected in their salaries.

For a political party that consistently opposed every effort to build a support network for working mothers to then condemn and guilt-trip them is despicable. Natal leave, parental leave, day care -- the whole complex of programs that exist in other industrialized nations to help working mothers does not exist here, thanks to the Republican Party. Most women in this country work because they have to. Most are still stuck in the pink-collar ghettos of sales personnel, clerical personnel, and waitressing. Clerical workers are in a particular bind as more and more corporations replace them with "temporary workers" in order to avoid having to pay health and retirement benefits. ...

There are lots of nice Republicans in this world, perfectly decent, quite bright people. When Peggy Noonan, Reagan's speechwriter, covered the Democratic convention for Newsweek, she wrote: "There was much talk of unity, but what I saw was the pretty homogenized gathering of one of the great parties of an increasingly homogenized country -- a country that has been ironed out, no lumps and wrinkles and grass stains, a country in which we are becoming all alike, sophisticated, Gapped, linened and Lancomed." It occured to me that Noonan not only did not attend the same Democratic convention I did, she does not live in the same country I do.

Turns out she lives in East Hampton, Long Island, which may account for it. Despite having lost her job at the White House a few years ago, she does not seem to have spent any time in the unemployment line. In her country people aren't worried about their jobs, they aren't caught in hideous health insurance binds, they aren't watching their standard of living slowly slip down, their hopes for a home slip slowly away, their dreams for the future dwindle. It's another country, the country of those who are Doing Well.

(The Republicans) seem not to believe in much of anything except their own entitlement to power. They are not the true believers of the Reagan years, nor even like the angry lower-middle-class Nixonites feeling snubbed by the Eastern Establishment. Too many years, too many limousines. They're out of touch with the country and fighting like piranhas not for ideas or any vision of a better America -- they're fighting to keep their limousines.

Thanks for the great words, Molly!