Posted on 06/24/2008 5:18:25 AM PDT by FreeManDC
The 16-month Hillary-palooza has finally gone bust. Her website bravely instructs us to "Support Senator Obama Today." Mrs. Clinton's staff has been pared down to a skeleton crew. And she's finally getting around to paying off the health insurance bills.
But Hillary's campaign wasn't a presidential nomination effort in the usual sense. It was a massive exercise in feminist consciousness-raising foisted on an unsuspecting American public.
Take Clinton's June 7 concession speech that was billed as an endorsement of rival Barack Obama. In reality it was a neo-Marxist rant lightly disguised as a feminist pep talk.
Hillary regurgitated her demand that women receive "equal pay" — slyly omitting the words "even though they choose to work fewer hours at jobs that are less likely to maim and kill." Mrs. Clinton also saw fit to blame her defeat on "unconscious" sex biases that had created the "highest, hardest glass ceiling."
That hard-edged rhetoric is one of the reasons why Hillary lost the race.
Let's look at the votes. While Barack Obama had a lock on the African-American vote, Hillary Clinton rallied the support of white women. The Black and white female vote basically offset each other.
So which group was the tie-breaker?
In states with exit polls, Barack Obama enjoyed 17 primary victories. In only four states did a plurality of white female voters support him: Iowa, Illinois, Vermont, and Oregon. [www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21660890]
But in 10 states, Mr. Obama took the white male vote: Iowa, Illinois, Vermont, and Oregon, plus Virginia, Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut, Utah, and Georgia.
The significance of that result is amplified by the fact that white men represent a smaller fraction of the electorate. For example in Illinois, white males compose 23% of the Democratic electorate, compared to 34% who are white females.
So in nearly 60% of Obama's victories, the smaller number of white men, weary of Hillary's girl-power riffs, came together to overcome the larger but splintered female vote.
After she conceded the race, the true-believers in the feminist Nirvana came out to genuflect at Mrs. Clinton's altar, lauding how her campaign had shattered gender myths and barriers. But in truth, Mrs. Clinton only crystallized the worst stereotypes about the Sisterhood:
1. Feminists are devious. Long-time Clinton confidante Dick Morris once wrote, "Bill lies about sex, Hillary lies about everything." From her fairytale that "women were routinely excluded from major clinical trials" to the bullets-in-Bosnia brouhaha, Hillary Clinton has a nearly congenital tendency to disregard the truth.
2. Feminists love to blame men. When her defeat became undeniable, Hillary cast about for explanations, eventually deriding the nation's alleged epidemic of sexism as "deeply offensive to millions of women." But what about Hillary's sexist caricatures of men?
3. Feminists don't accept responsibility for their failures. How many times do you remember Mrs. Clinton saying, "I'm sorry" over the past year and a half? If you scan Hillary's June 8 endorsement speech, she never hints at the many miscalculations and missteps of her campaign.
4. Feminists are arrogant. Recall Hillary's famous promise, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good"? Remember the aura of inevitability that she exuded during the early months of her campaign?
5. Feminists are self-possessed narcissists. As a college student, Hillary once confided that she had "not yet reconciled myself to the fate of not being the star," adding that as a child she used to "pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move." Does anyone doubt that Hillary believes her rightful place in the world is at the center of the universe?
6. Feminists can become very abusive. I have previously documented Hillary's foul ways: www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/070408 . On the day that Bill was inaugurated as President, Hillary was informed she wouldn't be moving into the vice-president's office, prompting this rebuke: "G*d d*mn it, Bill, you promised me that office!"
Once again, Hillary didn't get her way. Heaven help us from a candidate scorned.
BUYER BEWARE!!
She still hasn’t turned loose her delagates. Where’s that other shoe?
Any white male who votes for Obama in the general is certifiably insane.
Very good article by Carey Roberts. Thanks for posting.
Done without white male Bill, although his blubbering, phony adoration, outrageous statements and piling on helped to create sympathy/defense for 1/2 white male Barack. Hilarious re-emerged for a late run when Bill’s lips stopped moving and Barack’s creepy connections crawled out of the woodwork.
(Thanks Barack for knocking out Hillary, Bill & the Clinton enablers!)
Thanks for posting.
Let’s see, 80% of America is white, half of that are male. That gives us 40%. Only 23% of the Illinois Democrat primary voters were white males. The certifibly sane white males have left the building.
hillary would have won if she were not married to bill.
feminists forget that obama and hillary aren’t “apples and apples”.
so female vs male is only one issue out of many.
Anyone who votes for Obama in the general is certifiably insane.
Dick Morris is too kind to Bill--he also lies about virtually everything.
It's true that Hillary is insufferably arrogant. Unfortunately so is Obama.
GOODBYE, GOODBYE you battle-axe!!
Hillary never had a chance. Everybody can’t stand her. Bill sabatoged her of course and is a complete sociopath. But the things the author says about feminists are insane. Hating men and all that. There is a continuum on the issue and some of them take it past the point of reason to be sure, but the women supporting Hillary were nuts, not feminists.
Absolutely.
Obama is less qualified than me...Black is not a qualification and that's all he has.
neo-Marxist!
Bingo! I am so pleased to see this word ( and the word “communist”) being used.
There is no such thing as a “liberal”. They are ***ALL*** Marxists/Communists or a Useful Idiots. ( Every one of them!)
It's like a train line. The final destination is communism. Every “liberal” program is merely one more train stop along the line. COMMUNISM is the final destination!
Hillary and Obama are NOT “liberals”. They are COMMUNISTS!
(By the way...The Talking Pumpkin Heads ( Rush, Hannity, and OReilly) irritate me no end! When are they finally going to start calling the enemy who he is and what he is? ( COMMUNIST and MARXIST!) What is this? Is communism like “He Who Must Not Be Named” in the Harry Potter books? These Ichabods of talk radio are such weenies!
If you look at Obama's constituencies within the Democratic Party, they are exactly the weak links of the Democratic Party. He did disproportionately well in red states, and with white men who as a group do not tend to favor Democrats. Leave aside blacks - who scarcely can increase their margin over the 9:1 they are already giving the Democrats - and Obama is (at least compared to Hillary) weak exactly where he needs strength in the General Election.Ironically, however, McCain is no favorite of the red states, either. That makes this a purple election - quite a swath of the electoral map is up for grabs.
Presumably Obama will continue to poll well. And presumably the Bradley (or "Wilder") Effect will result in a McCain victory. But whoever wins will probably win by what will, in comparison of W's two elections, seem an Electoral College landslide.
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