presidential campaign – Don't Gel Too Soon

Big Birthday Memory #16: (More 1968) Obama, Clinton, New Hampshire And Primaries – 1968 And 2008

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from January 8, 2008.

In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson .

That was enough to be viewed as a win, since no one thought he’d get anywhere close to those numbers. That victory by the only national politician with the guts to run against the Vietnam War sent a shock through the Democratic Party.

McCarthy’s effort, often called “The Children’s Crusade,” was comprised largely of college students (including me) who abandoned their studies to come to New Hampshire and work to help to stop the war. Now, as I watch Barack Obama, and see the the numbers of young people propelling his success, I know just how they feel — and what awaits them if they fail.

Then too, win or lose, things will be tough for Senator Clinton. Obama, seen not only as a change agent but also as someone who offe

That’s exactly what happened in 1968. The New Hampshire victory brought Robert Kennedy into the race – establishing, until his tragic death, a three-way battle – two dissidents against the juggernaut of the Democratic establishment. Then later, Hubert Humphrey , candidate of that establishment and for years, as Vice President, public and energetic supporter of Johnson’s war, won the nomination.

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination. Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. (2016 NOTE: Let’s not let this happen again! That reluctance led to the election of Richard Nixon and all that followed. Think how different things would be…) Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners. Once the anti-establishment, anti-war student and Watergate hearing staffer, in the eyes of these young people she’ll be cast as the villain.

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review, from the 1968 Chicago Convention recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder. It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .

He recalls coming into the hotel lobby from the park where demonstrations were underway and spotting a woman he had first met during the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New Hampshire. “Her name was Cindy Samuels,” Broder still remembers. “She was seated on a bench crying. She had been gassed. I went over and I put my arm around her and I said: ‘Cindy. What can I do for you?’ She looked up at me with tears on her face and said: ‘Change things.’

NOTE: As I searched for links for this post I found a David Corn piece saying much the same thing. I want to take note of it since the ideas came to me independently but I didn’t want it to seem that I drew from his.

FREE-FLOATING ANXIETY 96 HOURS BEFORE THE VOTE

I am so nervous I can barely breathe. We’re going canvassing again Sunday and I will try to do more phone calls before then and after but seeing these polls closing – listening to Chuck Todd on MSNBC talk about states that are "tightening" – it’s really scary. I’ve felt all along that everyone is putting this election away way too soon. As I sat with friends and listened to Joe Trippi this week, all three of us were troubled by the seeming assumption that the race is "in the bag." It’s so easy to get complacent and stay home, make fewer calls, do a bit less, if you think things are going your way anyway.

In addition, we don’t know what the "young people" and first-time voters will do. Will they show up? Can they translate quotes like this one from college student Lauren Masterson, on the NewsHour:

"We see ourselves in him, I think. Even though he is of another generation, people are excited about him because he
seems to understand young people.

into turning out and waiting in line and casting that vote? Here’s a nice consideration of younger voters and their commitment.

I suppose if I just watched TNT and the endless, comforting Law and Order broadcasts instead of MSNBC, Your Place for Politics, I’d feel better but after all the years I spent covering campaigns, I can’t imagine avoiding information when it’s available. And it’s really the first presidential election where I’ve had no editorial responsibility (except my blog) so I have all these habits and nowhere to put them. I have to sit and listen and worry and watch and bounce from website to website, and to the links provided by friends on Twitter. Can’t stop. It’s not that I think I’ll miss the Important Moment, it’s that I keep hoping to hear some good news. We all know that races tighten at the end but many states are moving into the margin of error and that’s really scary.

At least I have to go offline for Shabbat, which is going to make me nuts but may be healthy. Keep an eye on things for me, will you?

Bristol Palin, Sarah, Paula Jones and a Question of What’s Right

I’ve started three new posts today trying to avoid writing about Bristol Palin. I don’t think I can. But I’m going to borrow someone else’s words, someone who has said it so much better than I could. The link in this piece came from the always wise Jill Miller Zimon, whose blog Writes Like She Talks is sharp and smart. She’s among those posting really thoughtful ideas about this very sad situation.

I’m as concerned as many of my peers about the choice issue and the complicated role it plays here; just as troubled by much of this candidacy and the tragic exposure of a very young woman to a national furor. My biggest problem though, is with what I see as the (noisy but far from majority) inappropriate writing and speculating about this family. In my mind, these attacks run a real risk of ending up as a "brie v beer" class war, and we’re not like that. We shouldn’t sound like we are. It’s the same feeling I had during the Paula Jones debacle when people wrote about her as "trailer park trash." Whatever the substance of either Jones or Palin, or this pregnant young woman, what’s been going on: trashing Sarah Palin for going back to work after her child was born, implying that if she’d been a better mother this pregnancy might never have happened… interpreting her values as "redneck" — is dangerous. I’m old enough to remember when conservatives talked like that – fought against all our efforts for equal pay, for non-mommy track hiring, for not only abortion rights but also contraception — all of it.

As I said though, Richard C. Harwood has written what I think is a very thoughtful piece about this potential battle – an unwinnable one, I fear. Here are two of the best quotes but you really should read the whole thing.

Moreover, I have said that I
know two families with specials needs kids where both parents work, and where
there is so much love and affection that I would be more than willing to have
my own two kids join those families. Further, I have wondered aloud why
stay-at-home dads who were once professionals are okay, but not Palin’s
husband. . . .

Let me be clear: I am not defending
Sarah Palin. To me, there is some virtue in her selection, but also the
rolling of dice. But how we talk this choice is just as important as our final
judgment. Why? Because so many of us want a different kind of politics in
America, a politics that is more reflective of reality, more thoughtful, and
more hopeful. We want a politics that transcends Red States and Blue States. We
want a politics that encourages honest and tough debate, but not unnecessary
discord and divisiveness. Now is our chance.

In 1984, I worked for Walter Mondale
when he nominated Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his choice for Vice President. Of
course, the initial burst of excitement for Ferraro dissipated quickly as she
found herself mired in family problems, with Mondale losing in a landslide.
While Palin’s selection and her running mate may take a similar route, the race
is still far from over. But no matter what, my question is, what route will you
take?

There is so much we all want to say. How we say it, though, could make all the difference.

SHUT UP AND SING: CATCHING UP WITH THE DIXIE CHICKS AND WORRYING ABOUT THE ELECTION

Have you seen this movie? I sat in bed watching it early Sunday morning on cable and was just blown away. It’s one of the saddest, scariest, most moving American documentaries I’ve seen in a long time. That’s no surprise, since it was directed by Barbara Kopple, who made Harlan County USA – the landmark documentary about coal mine union battles in Kentucky.

What happened to the Dixie Chicks is infuriating: performing in London just before the start of the Iraq war, lead singer Natalie Maines (married, by the way, to HEROES star Adrian Pasdar,) told the crowd "Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." The scene is included in this preview.

As I watched the film, seeing the rage and cruelty that emerged in the response to this one sentence, my first thought was, "Oh my God, what does this mean for Barack Obama?" The people who went after the Dixie chicks were nowhere near a sense of respect for the First Amendment – and sounded like they would be particularly vulnerable to "elitist" or racist accusations against a candidate. If you remember the exit polls in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania you’ll recall that many respondents just about acknowledged that they would not vote for Senator Obama simply because of his race. Am I unfair to wonder if many of those people are the same ones booing and even threatening Maines’ life? Still "out there" in larger numbers than we wish? Look at these figures:

In Pennsylvania
exit polls on primary day, 14% of voters
said that race one one of several important factors. Fifty-five percent of those were Clinton
voters and 45% Obama voters. When asked
race was “important” 19% said yes – 59% of them Clinton voters; when asked if
race was a factor in their decision, 12% said yes. In this group, 76% were white Clinton voters.

In West
Virginia, when asked race was “important” to their decision, 22% said yes –82%
of them Clinton voters; when asked if race was a factor in their decision, 21%
said yes. In this group, 84% were white
Clinton voters.

Finally, Ohio. There, when asked race was “important” to
their decision, 20% said yes– 59% of them Clinton voters; when asked if race
was a factor in their decision, 14% said yes. In this group, 59% were Clinton voters. (the racial breakdown was not available here.)

Please understand – I don’t know if I’m right. I’m not alleging racial bias in all those who rose up to burn Dixie Chicks CDs and threaten country stations with boycotts if they "ever played one of their songs again" – but I do suspect they could be more vulnerable to campaigns run in an uglier vein – just as they responded to this one. It’s worrying me.

Continue reading SHUT UP AND SING: CATCHING UP WITH THE DIXIE CHICKS AND WORRYING ABOUT THE ELECTION

BOY DO I HAVE SMART FRIENDS: MORRA AARONS CALLED IT WHEN NO ONE ELSE DID!

Yup. There’s lots more to say about the Hillary victory and I’m sure there will be plenty of time. It was pretty damn amazing, and her speech, I thought, was good and more like the woman we think she really is. I have admired for years her work with the Children’s Defense Fund, foster care advocacy and the innovation of HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) in Arkansas. She’s always been a champion of children and so I’ve seen her as a force for good. hat’s what she needs to continue to communicate along with the rest of her message — she’s done a lot of what Obama is talking about too.

Now, before I show you how right Morra, of Women and Work, and TechPresident and Huffington Post, was, I have a very superficial but interesting question. Remember all the crap Al Gore got for getting fashion advice from Naomi Wolf? Well. Last night was the first time I remember seeing Mrs. Clinton wearing other than a solid color. I only noticed because it struck me how much it had reduced the severity of her look. (And because I never learned to dress in a way that looked good on me until I was well into my 40s so I notice these things.) So I wondered if it was on purpose. That does not take away from any of the substance of her candidacy or victory – it’s just an interesting question.

OK Now – listen to Morra – from January 6 in New Hampshire (the prediction is near the end):

OBAMA, CLINTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND PRIMARIES – 1968 AND 2008

In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson .

Then too, win or lose, things will be tough for Senator Clinton. Obama, seen not only as a change agent but also as someone who offers the hope and optimism of a JFK, has captured the imaginations not only of young people but also of many journalists, most notorious of whom is the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. That means that anyone who wrests the nomination away from him will be perceived as the breaker of young hearts, standing in the way of idealism and the candidate who brought young people fully in to the system.*

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination. Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners. Once the anti-establishment, anti-war student and Watergate hearing staffer, in the eyes of these young people she’ll be cast as the villain.

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review, from the 1968 Chicago Convention, riot and Hum prey coronation recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder. It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .

Elizabeth Edwards Does Not Deserve This

This is a photo of Elizabeth Edwards (taken by Josh Hallett) talking to Jen Lemen a t BlogHer just over a month ago. It appears here, (aside from my high regard for both women in this photograph) because Jen’s post on that conversation is critical to what follows.

Which is that on August 27th a particularly vitriolic post about Elizabeth Edwards appeared on Silicon Valley Moms. I learned of it thanks to Emily McKhann of the wonderful Cooper and Emily of Been There and The Motherhood.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been this sad or troubled, especially by this community of women I have come to love and treasure. I was around for the days when playgroups of moms wouldn’t let their (my) kids join because they would be coming with a baby sitter, when male colleagues questioned my (necessary) decision to return to work after the birth of my first child and when, as I recalled while at a news conference there yesterday, women journalists like me WERE NOT ALLOWED into events at the National Press Club; we had to sit in the balcony.

It seems to me that this post puts us back up there – separated, this time, not from the men but from one another. I posted a comment at SVM but also share it with you here:

As usual, I’m late to the conversation but I have to tell you I am
shocked and saddened (how’s that for original?) Women have been kept at
one another forever – it’s a way to drain the power of what we become
when we work together. Driven to judge one another in pursuit of
acceptance, we make it far easier to dominate us.
Rebecca, (this is an edited version of what I had originally written –
I’m trying to take my own advice) why judge another parent like that?
Particularly one with EE’s history? If you want to say "I wouldn’t do
that; I’d worry about my kids being too disrupted" or some other
conversation-starter – that would be fine. But the level of vitriol and
cruelty in this post (more powerful probably because your write so
well) sounds more like Ann Coulter than a thoughtful mommy blogger.
I read that now you have changed your mind about portions of this initial
post. That suggests to me that instead of trashing of a critically ill
parent whose kids are getting the experience of a lifetime and more
quality time with their parents than most American moms and dads can
afford to offer theirs, you had saved this post as a "draft" and waited
a couple of hours to be sure of what you wanted to say, you would have been grateful for the chance to rethink before you published.
Did you read Jenn Lemon’s piece http://www.jenlemen.com/blog/?p=214
about her conversation with Ms. Edwards at BlogHer? EVERYONE — did
you? It’s here – and helps to clarify why so many readers felt such
deep pain reading this SVM post. She’s a remarkable woman
dealing with an unimaginable situation with grace and love.
These issues will always provoke strong feelings – the question is not
whether we have a right to those feelings but whether we have a right
to judge so harshly those who might choose lives different from our own.[NOTE: SPELLING CORRECTED 9/17]

OK that’s my speech on the subject. It’s just such a shame – OH – and take a look, if you go to SVM, at Ms. Edwards’ initial response (it’s magnificent)as well as her very classy second one this morning.