Hilary: Racism v Misogyny

Still having problems with my computer — had to run over to a friends to do this post. Hope to have the ole computer back later today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, take a look at Susan Faludi’s op-ed in the NY Times.

NOTABLE in the Indiana and North Carolina primary results and in many recent polls are signs of a change in the gender weather: white men are warming to Hillary Clinton — at least enough to vote for her. It’s no small shift. These men have historically been her fiercest antagonists. Their conversion may point less to a new kind of male voter than to a new kind of female vote-getter.

Pundits have been quick to attribute the erosion in Barack Obama’s white male support to a newfound racism. What they have failed to consider is the degree to which white male voters witnessing Senator Clinton’s metamorphosis are being forced to rethink precepts they’ve long held about women in American politics.

[...]Certainly through the many early primaries, Hillary Clinton was often defined by these old standards, and judged harshly. She was forever the entitled chaperone. But that was then. As Thelma, the housewife turned renegade, says to her friend in “Thelma & Louise” as the two women flee the law through the American West, “Something’s crossed over in me.”

Senator Clinton might well say the same. In the final stretch of the primary season, she seems to have stepped across an unstated gender divide, transforming herself from referee to contender.

What’s more, she seems to have taken to her new role with a Thelma-like relish. We are witnessing a female competitor delighting in the undomesticated fray. Her new no-holds-barred pugnacity and gleeful perseverance have revamped her image in the eyes of begrudging white male voters, who previously saw her as the sanctioning “sivilizer,” a political Aunt Polly whose goody-goody directives made them want to head for the hills.

The sad thing, I think, is that in this election cycle, in our rush to elect either the first black man or the first woman, we have all forgotten about the issues. We have become, under the direction of the media, so engrossed in the racism/misogyny blanket that we aren’t looking under the covers.

Meanwhile, McLame’s statements, like wanting more Scalito’s and Roberts, who have legislated from the bench, overturning a nearly century old precedent, barely hit the meter with the newshounds.

What the hell is wrong with that picture?