CSotD: Candidatesplaining
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Pat Bagley on the continued in-fighting of the Democrats, as the Republicans look on.
Not to suggest that the Republicans aren't going through their own moment of self-destruction, and you can fault Bagley for the suggestion that they're entirely in control of their own future. But, so far, they're keeping most of their dirty laundry out of view.
Though the unable-to-pass-anything factor is certainly telling.
But whether those satisfied alt-right onlookers represent the entire GOP or simply the faction in power, there's no doubt about the misdirected battle in the street below.
When the Romney/Ryan ticket was thunderously trounced in 2012, the Republican leadership did an extensive post-mortem that pulled few punches but was housed in analytical terms, not recriminations. It got plenty of coverage and discussion, though they were unable to make its conclusions and recommendations stick in the face of the Trump tsunami.
However, Ryan went back to his work in the House and Romney pretty much faded into the woodwork, though there was a documentary on his personal experience that mostly summarized the moment with little in the way of analysis, much less blame.
If anything, "Mitt" made Romney and his family seem human and likeable and perhaps a bit pitiable, making you forget for a moment the element of personal ambition that is essential to seeking the presidency of the United States, or even the chairmanship of the local PTA.
Nice guys don't finish last. Nice guys stay home and don't enter the race.
But even an ambitious person can exhibit a bit of class.
Clinton's upcoming book, as Jeff Koterba suggests, is apparently a litany of excuses, none of them aimed inward. From all previews and excerpts and advance commentary, it is not about how the party failed and what it must do in the future but, rather, why everyone let Hillary down, and if you'd like to fork over two grand, she'll explain it in person.
From everything that has come out about the book so far, it does, indeed, explain why she lost, but only by means of subtext. Even the half-governor of Alaska, when she wrote her own book about why she wasn't vice-president, didn't charge people $2,000 to come buy it and get it signed, though she didn't exactly sneak into town, either.
Mitt Romney may be the doofus who stuck his dog in a kennel on the roof of the car, but he managed to keep his ambition below the surface, and Hillary never has.
However much you like her policy efforts and her overall political instincts, she still comes across as the prissy honor student who raises her hand two minutes before the bell to remind the teacher to assign homework.
I wish she were president, and I did vote for her, just as I voted for her when she ran for Senate.
Because she ran against an unacceptable GOP jackass that time, too, and I unintentionally got involved in the campaign.
The fact that I held my nose in voting for her in 2000 was not sexism. I thought Bobby Kennedy was a carpetbagger, too, in 1964 when he suddenly discovered that he was from New York, though I was too young to vote.
New York often elects national senators and leaves their own people unrepresented.
I don't trust people who want the job more than they want to serve.
But judging by social media, disliking Bobby would be okay today. You might be wrong, but we could hammer it out.
Disliking Hillary, however, is misogyny, and trying to say why you don't support her is "mansplaining."
Which makes this article from Salon a mystery, because it was written by a woman.
As for the "Bernie voters turned on me" argument, here's some numbersplaining.
And here's some mansplaining of that numbersplaining, but the bottom line is that people vote in primaries to stop candidates as well as to support them.
Case in Point: I cast my first ballot in 1972 as an independent, for Pat Schroeder, a Democrat. Two years later, I registered as a Republican to vote in the primary because there was a particularly toxic candidate gearing up to run against her.
He lost the primary and I once again voted for Schroeder as I had intended to all along.
I don't know how many people did the same thing in 2016, trying to push Sanders over the top simply to stop Clinton, but I'd say maybe about 12%?
Bernie was clear and adamant from the night he lost the nomination, repeatedly stating that it was critical for his followers not simply to vote for Clinton but to actively support her candidacy.
But let's go back to Pat Schroeder for a little more perspective on misogyny.
Like Bernie, she was incredibly available to constituents, popping up at events and always with a moment to spare. I ran into her eight or ten times when I lived in Colorado, and, as a reporter in New York, I called her once on a health issue she'd been working on and she — not an aide — came to the phone.
She was warm and funny and smart and she rose in Congressional ranks to the point where she made a run for the presidency in 1987, but, when she withdrew, she teared up.
As this profile in the NYTimes notes, she was hardly the first politician to do so:
''When Reagan left town, the reporters following him were in hip-waders – he was bawling all the time,'' says Dan Buck. ''Bush says he cries at movies – he probably gave 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' three hankies.'' John Sununu ended up crying and embracing his wife during his farewell speech as governor to the New Hampshire Legislature. ''He bawled his head off,'' Buck adds. Still, conservatives felt she had displayed a dangerous emotionalism, and liberals were embarrassed.
And Saturday Night Live and all the comedians lept on it.
That's sexism. That's misogyny.
Of course, that was years ago.
Sigh.
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