reflectivepundit

New York Magazine on Media’s Gender Bias Against Hillary and Her Supporters

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Thanks to John Heilemann and New York magazine, we finally get a serious journalistic treatment of the mainstream media’s gender bias that was unleashed against Hillary Clinton and her female supporters during this year’s primary campaign and continues to be evoked against women that refuse to forget the mistreatment of their candidate. Towards the end of his excellent article on “The Fall and Rise of Hillary Clinton,” Heilemann addresses the Clinton campaign’s and her supporters’ anger towards the media that differs from so many efforts by his colleagues to brush this issue aside as sour grapes by a flawed candidate and bitter female backers.

Here are some excerpts from Heilemann’s article that deserves to be read in full:

“For months now, my e-mail box has been full of messages from women across the country, explaining what Hillary’s run meant to them, why it was so important. The reasons vary depending on age and race and region, but the one element almost all my correspondents express in common is a furious resentment at the press for what they see as blatant misogyny in the coverage of Clinton.

When I mention this to Hillary, she laughs and exclaims, “I’d love to get a look at your e-mail!” And then, more soberly, she goes on, “There’s a reason for the resentment. The level of dismissive and condescending comments, not just about me—what do I care?—but about the people who support me and in particular the women who support me, has been shocking. Shocking to women and to fair-minded men. But what has really been more disappointing to me is how few voices that have a platform have spoken out against it. And that’s really why you seen this enormous grassroots outrage. There is no outlet. It is rare that you have anybody on these shows or in a position of responsibility at major publications who really says, ‘Wait a minute! What are we talking about here? I have a wife! I have a daughter! I want the best for them.’ ”

Attackdogs against Clinton, Lapdogs for Obama

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The other day, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, devoted her column to defend Michelle Obama against possible future attacks from Republicans. Dowd, who was and still is along with her colleague Frank Rich one of the leading attackdog among the perennial Hillary (and Bill) Clinton haters, wrote that “Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of ‘Kill the witch.’ If anyone plays the “Kill the witch” game as ugly as it can get, it is columnist Dowd—at least when it comes to Hillary. Even after Senator Clinton threw the towel and endorsed Senator Obama, Dowd couldn’t stop going after Hillary. Nor could Rich or the obnoxious talking heads on cable television—especially those on MSNBC.

The attacksdogs against Clinton are lapdogs for Obama.

All during the campaign, female pundits were as sexist as their male counterparts in their united front against Hillary. And they fought mightily against those who accused them of gender bias. Dowd closed one of her recent columns with yet another defense against the charge of the mainstream media’s gender bias, when she wrote that Clinton “didn’t lose because she was a woman. She didn’t lose because
America isn’t ready for a woman as president. She lost because of her own — and her husband’s and Mark Penn’s — fatal missteps.”

Don’t believe it.

Even Katie Couric who knows a thing or two about gender bias in the media, especially when it comes to the coveted positions of TV-network anchors, said the other day,

“However you feel about her politics, I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I’ve ever seen.”

According to one account, “Couric went on to say that latent sexism contributed, in part, to Hillary's defeat. She referred to one ‘rominent member of the commentariat’ who said he ‘found it hard to be objective when it came to Obama.’

‘That's your job,’ she remembers thinking when hearing this, before suggesting that he ‘find another line of work.’”

For these remarks, I am sure, Katie will be put through the wringer one way or the other by those in the media who can’t overcome their gender prejudices..

Obama: Of Celebrities and Star Appeal

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As I came to terms with the reality that there will not be a first female presidential candidate or female president for a while—and perhaps not in my life time; as I pondered  the choice between Senators Obama and McCain; as I figured that I cannot vote for Mr.McCain or leave the presidential line on the ballot blank; and as I have concluded that Mr. Obama is the best choice now, I read in an Associated Press dispatch that Barack Obama picked “President Kennedy's daughter Caroline to help him choose a [candidate for] vice president.”

I took a deep breath and wondered whether this was a joke. I have no negative feelings towards the Kennedys. Quite the opposite. But I do have a problem with a presidential candidate and his camp that obviously make decisions based on the input of perfectly fine persons who are well connected—politically, socially, and financially-- but have no track record whatsoever in politics and policy-making. Their qualification is celebrity and star power.

The choice of Ms. Kennedy as part of an important advisory panel reinforces the impression that part of Mr. Obama’s success is based on his appeal as a polit-star and his significant support by and reliance on celebrities and what one might call a pop movement. This tend happens to come at the expense of substance.
Perhaps, Mr. Obama and his crew picked Caroline Kennedy to thank the ailing U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy for his early endorsement. Perhaps, her role will be that of a prominent figure-head. But if that is the case, Senator Obama could have made her honorary chairperson of something less important now or later instead of part of a group that will reportedly come up with recommending the vice-presidential candidate. Just look at current Vice-President Dick Cheney and you know how important the second person in command can be.

Many so-called political experts told us in the last 24 hours that Barack Obama has a lot of work to do in order to unite the Democratic Party and win the support of Clinton supporters. I for one was ready to forget the outrageous overt or covert charges by Obama campers that women in my age bracket are not supporting Mr. Obama all along because they are outdated racists and feminists, or bitter failures.

But now, I am more sure than yesterday that  Senator Obama has indeed a lot of work to do in the months before Election Day—particularly, but not only in the selection of those who advise him on important matters during the general campaign and in preparation for his now possible presidency. Moreover, he needs to show better judgment than in the past in selecting those he associates with. 

Bill Clinton Hurt Hillary ‘s Quest for the White House

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I do not know, and do not want to know, what is going on in former president Bill Clinton’s head or elsewhere in his sagging body. But this much is clear: he has not helped but rather hurt his wife’s efforts to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and the White House. It is quite possible and perhaps likely that he wanted to help Hillary’s cause, but one cannot help but recognize that he should have rather devoted his time to his own post-presidential causes and stayed out of Hillary’s campaign. 

As it is, the man who has been called the first Black president because he was able to relate to and communicate with African-Americans like no other chief-executive before him managed to cause or at least contribute to the perception that the Clinton camp “drew the race card” in the heated competition between Hillary and Barack Obama.

There is no doubt that the leading mainstream media organizations are full of people who did not and do not hide their preference for Senator Obama and who used every opportunity to whack Senator Clinton and Ex-President Bill Clinton—even by misinterpreting and blowing remarks made by the Clintons and their aides out of all proportions. 

But after taking so many shots below the belt during his eight years as president, Bill Clinton should have known how to play the media game to his wife’s advantage. Instead and probably unwittingly, he hurt his wife’s chances. It will be up to psychiatrists and psychologists to figure out how and why this happened. 

As far as I am concerned the last proof of Bill Clinton’s damaging behavior with respect to his wife’s campaign was his stunning remark today—one day before the last two primaries of the Democratic Party. According to press reports, the former president said at a stop in South Dakota, one of the last two primary states, “"I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind.”

In other words, Bill Clinton threw the towel at a time when Hillary was still campaigning her heart out to make a strong showing in both South Dakota and Montana.

If Bill Clinton would have kept his mouth shut during the campaign (a lesson that Michelle Obama learned quickly after the uproar over her controversial statements), his wife may have won the nomination race.

It's Official: Obama is Bush

by David Epstein

With today's results in Puerto Rico, Hillary has retaken the lead in the popular vote. So we're now back
in 2000, with the role of Bush being played by Obama, the role of Gore being played by Clinton, and the role of Florida being played by, well, by Michigan and Florida.

The only question is whether the superdelegates are going to play the role that the Supreme Court played and call the election for Obama even though the popular vote is against him.

But wait, there's more. This isn't an election, of course -- it's a nomination process designed to yield the candidate most likely to win the general election. You would think that with things as tight as they are, the Obama people would feel obliged to make a positive argument about why their candidate fits this description, especially given his weak polling in swing states, and related J-curve problem that I noted earlier. But no, like Bush before him, he keeps talking about his delegate advantage and "playing by the rules," conveniently ignoring the fact that the superdelegates are part of the rules too.

The question still stands: will the superdelegates do their job, or go the path of least resistance, like the Supreme Court did eight years ago?

Obama’s “Victory” and the Democratic Party’s Undemocratic Rules

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The Founding Fathers established an electoral college for the election of presidents based on the votes allotted to each state in the union. It was not exactly a democratic solution in that it allowed for the election of a chief executive who did not win the nation-wide popular vote. When this happens as in 2000 when Al Gore won more than half-a-million million more popular votes than George W. Bush, the “winner’s” legitimacy is questioned—at least by those who supported the “loser.” In order to keep the states on board, the Framers compromised on several counts. 200 years after the U.S. Constitution was framed and with the experience of the 2000 debacle fresh on their mind, the Democratic National Committee did not have concerns like the Framers and should have democratized the party’s presidential primary rules and respected the one-person-one-vote principle. Instead, the party continues to allowed the allotment of delegates in the primaries and caucuses of the states to violate the most fundamental democratic requirement. As a result, with yesterday’s decision by the party’s Rules Committee to recognize the primaries in Michigan and Florida, Senator Hillary Clinton has officially won more popular votes during the nominating process than Senator Obama who was nevertheless allotted more delegates during the intra-party selection process.

To be sure, it is too late for this year’s nomination to design a primary system that does away with the flawed caucuses, does not allow Republicans and Independents to participate in the intra-Democratic competitions, and divvies up delegates according to the popular votes in states and territories.

And don’t expect that this will happen at the Democratic Party’s convention in Denver or thereafter. Yesterday’s meeting of the Rules Committee (now firmly controlled by the Obama camp as is the  Democratic National Committee) gave Senator Obama everything he could have hoped for, especially in the case of Michigan primaries. Although Clinton, whose name was on the ballot, won 55% of the vote there and Obama, who took his name on the ballot, did not receive any vote, the Rules Committee awarded Hillary Clinton with 69 delegates and Barack Obama with 59 (each with ½ vote per delegate at the Denver convention). How, in heaven, can you insist that a percentage of the votes is given to a candidate whose name was not on the ballot?

Well, the Obama camp did and prevailed. That's why I would not expect from those responsible for this exercise in the Democratic Party’s undemocratic rules of the game to push for reforms in the service of democracy.

Much was said during and after yesterday’s disappointing meeting about the need and prospect for party unity by Obama supporters on the Rules Committee and even some Clinton backers. But in view of the undemocratic primary process, Hillary Clinton’s lead in popular votes, and the stunningly unfair and undemocratic Michigan ruling, it will be very difficult—if not impossible—to unite the party—even against Senator McCain and his Bush-like agenda.

Where Things Stand: Clinton Has the Better Chance to Win the General

by David Epstein

As the primary season winds down, it's useful to take a look at the whole picture on the Democrat's side. In just about all respects, the race was a tie, as illustrated in the figure below. After the last set of primaries, Obama leads in the popular vote by 50.1% to 49.9%.* Due to the arcane delegate allocation formulas, this lead is magnified to 52.5% to 47.5% in the pledged delegate count.

As the figure shows, these leads are miniscule compared with the range of possible outcomes. Still, if that were all we had to go on, Obama could make a claim that, no matter how close, he's the winner, and that's that.

But this isn't taking place in a vacuum. The point of a primary is to pick the candidate with the greatest chance of winning the general election. Period. And to this end, Clinton has the strongest cards on her side of the table. First, as the figure shows, she leads in the electoral college votes of the states she's won by a whopping 308 to 221, or 58.2% to 41.8%. Moreover, as I explained in my last post on this topic, Obama has a "J-curve" problem; he's winning the states that were either strongly democratic or strongly republican in the past two elections, while Clinton is winning the swing states. If you're a democratic strategist, this makes you worry that he won't run as well in Clinton in the states that count for reversing the results of the last two elections.

Again, this argument has nothing to do with the race of voters, the race of candidates, their gender, and so on. It's just the obvious set of numbers to look at when you're trying to prove which candidate will do better in the general election. Obama should make a substantive argument as to why he thinks he's better positioned to win in November, or so the right thing by the party and just exit the race in favor of Clinton.

* Of course, these days, you can't give primary results without explaining how you're dealing with all the "tricky" state results. I'm counting Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington by estimates of the popular vote, since no official results were released. I'm counting Florida straight up, as this is, statistically, about where the result would have been if you extrapolate from similar states. And for Michigan I'm using the "10% rule," which says Hillary would have won by about 10%, as she did in the other big Midwestern industrial states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey. Note that this is less favorable to Hillary than counting only her votes in Michigan and none for Obama, or counting her votes and giving him the "Uncommitted" vote. Either of these methods put her in the lead for the popular vote, but I don't think they're realistic, and as a superdelegate I'd want a fair estimate of what the result would have been if those two states had voted regularly, like all the others, and this is probably the best guess.

Hillary versus Barack: Gender Bias Stronger than Racial Prejudices

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Mothers Day seems the perfect occasion to bemoan the now obvious fact that I was wrong all along to assume or hope that this was the year in which Americans would finally elect a woman to the highest office in the land. Had I not ignored the lessons of history, I would have avoided the disappointment over what is now inevitable—that another man—Senator McCain or Senator Obama and not a woman--will be sworn in as the next president of the United States. After all, African-American males got the constitutional right to vote many decades before women--regardless of their race. Little wonder, then, that contrary to every day life bias against strong and successful females has been more pervasive than prejudices against black males, when it comes to competitive advantage in politics, business, education, the arts, and other walks of life.

The deeply seated bias against and the subsequent stereotyping of successful women struck me the other day, when I read a story about the fall of Zoe Cruz, the most successful female Wall Street executive, who had been in line to become the boss of the investment firm Morgan Stanley.  These are a few excerpts of Joe Hagan’s excellent article: 

”Of all the recent firings on Wall Street, Cruz’s is the one that’s still vehemently debated… The fascination comes from the fact that Cruz is a woman, and that she had climbed further up the Wall Street food chain than any other woman ever had. She was fired at a time when women on Wall Street were starting to wonder—after more than a quarter-century of getting M.B.A.’s and slugging it out in the firms’ trenches—when one of them was finally going to make it to the CEO’s office… 

From the beginning, she had the uncompromising ferocity that seems to be characteristic of nearly all women who achieve great success.

Cruz was more “alpha” than most of the women she started out with at Morgan Stanley. She wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Wall Street, especially at the time, was dominated by men, but she was determined not to acknowledge it. She loved the game, and she was good at it—she didn’t see what her gender had to do with it.”

If that sounds a lot like the portrayal of women who manage to climb up the ladder in local, state and, particularly, in national politics, the reactions of males (and, I assume, some of their female collaborators) at Morgan Stanley is even more revealing in understanding the fall of Zoe Cruz and the failure of the once favored Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Pundits Close to Get their Dream Contest: McCain versus Obama

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The pundits, the correspondents, and the boys and girls on the bus(es) on the roll for John McCain and Barack Obama are now close to realize their dream for this election year: media darlings McCain and Obama will face each other in November. While the stars of television, print, and blogosphere rejoice, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read Jim Rutenberg’s New York Times article “Pundits Declare the Race Over,” in which he mentions Tim Russert and Walter Cronkite and the Drudge Report as if they were one of a kind. Nothing could be further from reality: Russert and Drudge are no Walter Cronkite! Nor are the other non-journalists among the fourth estate who love to call themselves “correspondent,” “journalist,” or “press.” But whether one likes it or not, today’s pundits have enormous power—because of their  perceived and real influence on the general public, on voters, and on the media-obsessed political class.

I wonder when the know-it-all guardians of our national interest will begin to second-guess their concerted efforts to demonize Hillary Clinton and their contribution to her now all but certain defeat. Soon, they will not have Senator Clinton to kick around any more to feed their constant stream of irrelevant but hyped up “breaking news” about the presidential contender they love to hate.

Without Hillary Clinton in the mix, the mainstream media and especially the cable networks' political infotainment casts will soon need to pick a Hillary substitute to keep their good-versus-evil campaign narrative going.

The Reverend Wright Enhances McCain’s White House Chances

By Brigitte L. Nacos
If you saw the recent ad sponsored by the Republican Party in North Carolina that featured Senator Barack Obama side by side with his “spiritual mentor of 20 years,” the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, you know what is in stock for Senator Obama in this fall’s general election campaign, if he becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee. While the North Carolina ad and similar ones elsewhere are part of congressional contests, the Wright-Obama association will become the predominant theme of this fall’s “Swift Boat” version. Under-the-belt campaign ads like the Willy Horton commercial and similar attack ads that derailed Governor Mike Dukakis presidential chances and the “Swift Boat” offensive against Senator John Kerry are typically financed and placed by groups that do not have official ties to the benefiting campaign. Like George H. W. Bush in 1988 and George W. Bush in 2004, John McCain will be able to distance himself from Obama-Wright ads, point to unaffiliated groups, and even disavow this tactic. But the damage will be done because negative campaign ads work—regardless of their sponsors. Chances are that Obama will be bombarded and maybe defeated by attack ads just like Dukakis and Kerry in earlier presidential races. 

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports that for the McCain camp and the Republican Party the assumption is that Obama is the nominee of the Democratic Party. Obviously, the McCain campaign and the Republican Party are poised to start the battle against Obama four months before the official start of the general campaign. As Martin writes, “The National Republican Congressional Committee has purchased $500,000 in anti-Barack Obama ads for use in two upcoming special House elections. The Republican National Committee is flooding reporters with anti-Obama emails. Presumptive nominee John McCain and GOP surrogates have seized on new remarks by Obama’s controversial former pastor.”