I had a telephone conversation with a good friend last night after having watched the second evening of the 2008 Democratic Convention. She brought up Hillary Clinton's speech, and spoke of how inspiring and uniting Clinton's speech was. Consequently, my friend was surprised and one could say slightly annoyed that I had any criticisms or skepticisms to share about the former presidential candidate's words and her genuineness in saying them.
I, like my friend, was very impressed with the last few minutes of Clinton's speech, as I thought she was finally able to stop talking about herself and her accomplishments and was able to focus on the people, the country and the need to unite in order to adequately confront the crises that the United States is facing. I was particularly moved by the inspirational quote by Harriet Tubman (centered on advice that she gave to slaves while helping them escape along the underground railroad) that Clinton included toward the end of her speech and I believe that the audience was truly moved by Clinton’s use of Tubman's words of wisdom:
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they're shouting after you, keep going.
Don't ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
Hillary made this quote relevant by adding her own words, "Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going". At this moment, I truly wanted to believe in the authenticity of Clinton’s speech, and to trust that she was truly trying to unite the Democratic Party for reasons that transcended her own personal power and political goals.
However, I am uncertain of whether or not Clinton was authentically "standing behind" Barack Obama in the beginning and middle of her speech. Clinton asked the audience toward the middle of her speech,
"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?"
From Her quote it seems as though Clinton was gracefully and stoically asking her supporters to transcend their allegiances to her and unite behind Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. But is this what Clinton really wanted? Or was her intention of the first half of her speech, which highlighted her accomplishments and her 35 years of hard work for the Democratic Party, including the 18 million cracks that she and her supporters have put in the glass ceiling, to reveal who the real presidential candidate should have been--herself?
It's not that I believe that Hillary Clinton should hide her accomplishments. I believe her achievements have been extraordinary, and she made an excellent candidate for the presidency. I believe that there should be a celebration of the amazing time in history that she has been a part of—and of how far Clinton has come in her quest to become the first woman president of the United States. Indeed, her incredible intelligence and prowess shows hope and promise and possibility for women and girls of all generations and the world. I myself, started out as a Hillary Clinton supporter and I believe that sexism stopped her from going further in her campaign for the presidency.
However, I don't believe that the democratic convention is the place that Clinton should be highlighting the qualities that she knows only reaffirm to her supporters that she is the candidate that should be running for president. Even though she directly asked her supporters to support Barack Obama, her words, nuanced delivery and passive aggressive tone said otherwise.
Clinton managed to get through her speech having appeared to build up Barack Obama but not really having done so--In her speech she said that America needs good leaders but never actually called Barack Obama a good leader. She did, however, manage to undermine Obama's leadership skills and experience with foreign policy, two things she criticized him for when she ran against him for the presidency when she said,
"Americans are also fortunate that Joe Biden will be at Barack Obama's side. He is a strong leader and a good man. He understands both the economic stresses here at home and the strategic challenges abroad. He is pragmatic, tough, and wise."
No one can refute that Hillary Clinton is skilled in delivery and rhetoric. How can one really call her out on the subtle undertones of her speech? Her defense could easily be that she was simply giving accolades to the Obamas and Bidens as a team. Throughout her speech, Clinton said things that she could easily argue were positive and supportive of Barack Obama, but could also be perceived as passive aggressive comments given her past criticisms of Obama such as, "And I can't wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American. "
I realize that it has to be difficult to concede a presidential campaign, and maybe even especially so in Clinton's case, when there has been rampant sexism attempting and finally succeeding in squashing her ambitions of becoming president. But this does not give her the right to undermine Barack Obama in her speech at the democratic convention, no matter where her future political interests lie, and no matter how unjust it is that sexism has beleaguered her political aspirations of becoming president for the time being.
I also realize that like my friend, many, perhaps even the majority of people, will not view her speech as having passive aggressive tones. Many of the reviews and discussions I have seen or read of her speech thus far have raved about Clinton’s words and the message that she sent out to the country through them--that we need to unite behind Barack Obama in order to save the country from 4 more years of disaster. My friend said that she would prefer to continue to feel inspired and motivated by Clinton’s speech, and to just believe in its authenticity, rather than have it be jaded by my “overly critical” and “cynical” comments. I acknowledge that sometimes just believing in the authenticity of something is nice, and in politics, it seems that this chance to do so comes around altogether too rarely.
However, politics are interesting because of these different layers and nuances that people see, and I believe it is important that we recognize and listen to perspectives that are different from our own in order find or at least search for truth. Through Clinton’s speech, I believe that damage was done to Barack’s campaign, and to the Democratic Party, albeit in a subtle way. Hillary got the retribution she wanted, but at what cost? Perhaps we need to ask Hillary to ask herself, “Were you in this campaign just for you?”
*Read Clinton’s full speech, posted on August 26, 2008 at: http://www.truthout.org/article/hillary-rodham-clinton-were-you-in-it-just-for-me
And send me some thoughts please!
1 comment:
I appreciate the perhaps skeptic connotation with which you have approached Ms.Clinton's words which are have been and will continue to be broadcast cross the nation and the world. Intent can can be a cloaked realization oft especially when agendas are construed through past attempts and accomplishments via analogous quips seeded to anchor the listening audience and provide a reference point from which to secede or align.
Interesting also is the psychology revolving through the use of such an anchor from which the acrimonious contention both culturally and historically as well as to the relative recentness and lingering oppressive repercussions from such a tumultous time in americas history. so coincidently not it is hopefully that, by Ms.Clinton arising emotive momentum through the masses with her words of tubman, she subtley is was and will do trying to swing mass acceptance from the mountable obstacle of publicly and nationally supporting a presidential figure head whom is a woman, her, to one that is an african-american. that is neither a male nor white and as much as anyone would like to hope that it will not factor into the outcome of this elective period - it, as you have made mention, possibly was too high a brick for Ms.Clinton to escape and plagues our inner workings of the mechanism that is our society still daily.
thank you for the blog.
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