As a disclaimer... many people will disagree with this diary. I know that. I also know that it explores one tiny facet of a much larger, more complex issue.
Second disclaimer... I am an ardent Clinton supporter... but I am also an ardent, lifelong Democrat. I will absolutely vote for Barack Obama. I am a mother... I held my infant twin sons as I watched GWB win a 2nd term as POTUS. Never have I felt more angry, hopeless, helpless. I do not want that feeling again. This country cannot afford another day of a Republican President.
I take Hillary Clinton's words very much to heart:
"Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next President and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort."
McCain must lose. Obama must win.
That said, I thought that this article / OpEd was an excellent summation of how I (and I assume MANY other Clinton supporters) are feeling at the moment.
I thought perhaps it might help Obama's most ardent supporters to understand the vibe out there... the "why" of the anger, the disappointment, the feeling that history has been snatched from our clutches at the moment when we had it within our grasps.
This is not intended as an Obama smear at all. It is intended as an honest look... and, in an odd way, a step towards unity. I can absolutely understand the anger which is out there... at the media, at the DNC, at Democratic leadership and yes, at Obama.
Read with an open mind and try to understand?
http://www.thestar.com/News/USElection/a rticle/439575Beaten By The Protégé
Obama vs Clinton race as eerily similar to the movie "All About Eve". Once, she was his mentor.
June 09, 2008
Judy GerstelShe was highly regarded and well-connected, an illustrious, mature woman recognized and admired for her commitment, her talent, her tenacity. Granted, she was somewhat mercurial, a woman who played different roles. But she was generous with her colleagues and a tireless, consummate performer at the peak of her powers.
Along came a young admirer, fresh-faced and ambitious, new to the scene but with enormous appeal, beguiling and winning over the older woman's supporters. Ostensibly eager, at first, to learn the ropes from her and to emulate her, the neophyte quickly found the cracks in her armour and exploited them, undermining her, weakening her position and, sensing that she could be toppled, strategizing successfully to surpass her, to bring her down, to take on her role.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?
No. Margo Channing and Eve Harrington.
What happened to Clinton on the way to the Democratic nomination may ring a bell with anyone who's seen the 1950 film, All About Eve.
All that was missing, as the results came in at the close of the Iowa caucus in January, when the young, inexperienced but engaging rival outstripped the knowing, hard-edged professional, was someone delivering that memorable line in the movie: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"
It's a classic plot - and one that resonates profoundly with older women, in both their professional and personal lives.
Granted, men also have to contend with smart, ambitious, competitive, charming young whippersnappers determined to overtake them in corporate life, in athletics and, sometimes, in the bedroom.
For women over 50, however, it's an ongoing, daily struggle to defend against being sidelined because of age, to avoid giving way to somebody younger, fresher, more attractive - and often, it's the strength, power and confidence of the older woman and her insistence on standing her ground that makes her seem even less attractive.
But is it really fair to cast Obama in the role of Eve Harrington to Clinton's Margo Channing, a character played by Bette Davis in one of her most remarkable performances?
Consider this observation printed in the Hamilton Spectator on May 28, 2005, about the newbie senator:
"Obama is keeping a determinedly low profile. His model is Hillary Clinton ..."
The article refers to his "protests of humility" and quotes him: "I don't want to be fabricated into some great hope for the Democratic party just because I am flavour of the month now ... after the people have seen my work, hopefully they will feel I can make a contribution."
It would seem Hillary Clinton had nothing to worry about in the next couple of years as Obama was starting to make his "contribution." Clearly, he regarded her as a mentor, not a rival. No wonder Clinton was lulled into the confidence many critics deemed a sense of entitlement - just as Margo Channing was at first lulled into regarding Eve Harrington as a harmless sycophant instead of a threat.
And when, on Aug. 3, 2007, New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny wrote about the increasing tension between Clinton and Obama, he noted, "It wasn't always this way."
It had to have been inconceivable to the Clintons a mere two years ago that by the spring of 2008 Obama would be branding them racists and usurping their devoted constituency of African-American voters.
Zeleny writes, "When Mr. Obama was running for the Senate, Mrs. Clinton waited out a lightning storm on a tarmac to fly to Chicago for a fundraiser on his behalf. After he arrived in Washington in 2005, he studied her first year in office and worked to keep a similarly studious - yet low - profile.
"After Hurricane Katrina, he joined Mrs. Clinton and former president Bill Clinton as they visited storm evacuees in Houston, with Mr. Obama walking a few paces behind out of deference to the leading names of the Democratic party."
The relationship began to change, reports Zeleny, when Obama began musing aloud on a presidential bid.
And yet, in 2005, newly arrived in Washington from the Illinois state senate, he revealed an unintended "glimpse into his own competitiveness, " writes Zeleny, "when a Chicago television reporter who had come to Washington to interview Mr. Obama informed him that he had snagged a hallway interview with Mrs. Clinton.
"`I outpoll her in Illinois,' Mr. Obama said. After realizing his remark had been overheard, he said: `That was a joke.'"
Eve Harrington couldn't have handled it better.
And Clinton may not be the first woman in the role of Margo Channing to Obama's Eve.
His mentor in the Illinois state senate was Alice Palmer, a respected black activist who'd picked Obama as her successor in the mid-'90s. "When she tried to reclaim her spot," according to a Los Angeles Times political blog posting by a reporter in the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau, "Obama got her booted from the ballot."
The narrative of the Democratic nomination is not just that of neophyte scheming to replace the mentor, of youth shoving maturity out of the way, a story as old as time. It's more complicated because, in this case, it involves misogyny and sexism both blatant and subtle.
For many women bereft by Clinton's loss, "it was not just a matter of politics but of identity," Leslie Wayne observed on the New York Times politics blog. "Many said her struggle to gain the nomination - and the insults they believe Mrs. Clinton has endured along the way - mirrors their own struggles in life and in the corporate world."
One woman who sees it that way is Sheila Copps, the former deputy prime minister who endured her own insults and struggle along the way and admits to being, "totally depressed" about Clinton being overtaken by Obama.
"She was supplanted," Copps says, speaking by phone from Mexico. "We were sideswiped on the way to the White House."
Now, citing the "blatant" sexism in the media coverage of Clinton, she says, "What's even sadder is that people can't even see it."
Then there is this video from fall of 2004... when Obama was a newly elected US Senator. Even he admits that he is under-qualified to run for President in 2008. Clearly, he changed his mind... or colleagues in the Senate and in IL urged him on to go-for-it. The rest is history.
I have to admit... as a woman (and a small-business-owning working mother) who fiercely supported Hillary Clinton, worked hard for her campaign and will always believe her to be the superior, most qualified, most experienced candidate whom the Democrats had this year... this stings a LOT... and it goes far beyond just her loss. There are so many examples I can think of in my own life and career... where women work twice as hard to earn half as much credit. I've seen this scenario play itself out over-and-over again in my own life and the lives of my friends and family... where a highly qualified older woman loses-out to a handsome, younger, charismatic man. That is where the anger stems from.
Many people ask... what can Obama do? Personally I don't think he can do anything. I think that he's simply got to win big and then be a great POTUS. The protégé must now prove himself.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 59 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
