Clinton Walks Tightrope Of Strength And Emotion

[RestoreGore]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/pl_nm/usa_politics_clinton_dc

Be strong or show some emotion? Stick to policy or share your private life?

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton faces this challenge as she tries to become the first woman in the highest office in the land: how to appear human without appearing weak.

Clinton, a New York senator who has struggled to overcome public perceptions that she is aloof, peppered her speeches this week with references to her childhood and personal life in a twin effort to give substance to her policy goals while opening a window to her personal life.

Analysts say women running for office face a challenge their male counterparts do not in walking a line between exhibiting strength and showing their feelings.

The former first lady has largely favored strength, emphasizing her resume of experience and readiness to serve as commander-in-chief as she campaigns for the Democratic nomination to contest November's presidential election.

Still, a rare teary-eyed moment shortly before the New Hampshire nominating contest was widely credited with turning the result in her favor, handing her a much-needed victory over rival Barack Obama and rejuvenating her candidacy after a loss in the first nominating contest in Iowa that some predicted would be fatal to her presidential hopes.

Since then, that softer side has been on display less often during the see-saw battle with Obama, an Illinois senator seeking to become the first black U.S. president, while her experience argument has produced some holes.

Clinton was forced to back away from her claim that she came under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady after a video contradicted her version.

"So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human which, you know, for some people, is a revelation," she told reporters on Tuesday.

Is it a revelation? Maybe not. But even supporters say they would like to see more of the 60-year-old candidate's human side.

"She seems standoffish to ... the public, like when she's on television," said Stacey Barron-Salvio, 39, a Clinton supporter and mother of six who was attending a rally in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

"I've never heard her really talk about her personal stories that much. I think if she showed some of those personal sides -- even if there are some flaws -- it makes her look more human and it makes her appeal to more people."
~~~~~~~~~ end of excerpt.

I post this not as a supporter of Hillary Clinton's policies, but as a woman. A woman who has experienced discrimination in a prior workplace because of my gender and also as a woman who believes that in today's political atmosphere while more women have entered politics, the same stereotypes exist in politics that exist in the corporate world.

I was not pleased with Sen. Clinton's exaggeration of her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. She simply could have stated that she was in Bosnia and happy to have been kept safe there even though she was in danger of sniper fire, which actually would not be considered a lie under the circumstances. I have been trying to think beyond the soundbites then as to why she would say what she did. Why she would blatantly color the experience. And while some simply go along with the media soundbites and think it is because she is a cold calculating 'bitch' ( which may or may not be true) I think it goes deeper than that. I think it goes to the point that as a woman in politics especially one running for the presidency, you have to appear brave, strong, and someone with "balls" able to lead better than a man in order to be taken seriously.

From accounts I have read of her young life she was a woman who cared about many of the things we all care about. Did politics then harden her? I think to a great extent it did. I think Washington DC can do that to the softest kindest heart if you are exposed to its poison long enough. Even Al Gore was recently quoted as saying, " Politics does bad things to good people."

I am not trying to excuse her embellishments or the way her campaign has been run (which I think is something her 'advisors' need to be fired for) but I am honestly disappointed and a bit sad at the developments and the way it appears she has allowed herself to be swept into the void of politics that turns your real person off.

When I was a young girl I actually thought of what it would be like to have a woman president. Unfortunately, in the system we have I don't think that is going to happen this time out, and if it does people will not be able to acknowledge the historical significance of it because they will be too involved in hating regardless of how she may now wish to appear. The damage has already been done.

I just hope that for young women coming up seeing this has not turned them off to wanting to be involved in changiing this world for the better through politics and social activism. I also really hope that Sen. Clinton can see just what politics has done to her and step back before it consumes her. She had a chance to change the way the man's game in Washington DC is played. I hope she sees it before it is too late. As for women in general in politics or the corporate world: we still have much work to do to take our place in both areas and personally, I don't think showing a bit of humanity or "emotion" in the process is something to be ashamed of.

[saltpoint]

1. I would say more of a labyrinth of delusion and power-grabbing,

with a generous dose of entitlement.

[RestoreGore]

2. Like any other "man?"

[saltpoint]

4. "any other man" -- but Senator Clinton is a woman, I believe.

As far as I know.

Also -- change the ver to "slithers."

[RestoreGore]

7. Typical.

[saltpoint]

9. It's typical of pseudo-feminists to pretend they support Hillary owing to

her feminist principles, even as they clearly observe her abandon them.

It's also typical of her supporters to post that those who choose other candidates are "sexist."

What a clueless OP.

[RestoreGore]

14. You obviously are the clueless one

This is about more than Hillary Clinton. Perhaps if the majority of this decrepid forum did more than knee jerk their reactions and actually thought and read before typing there actually could be a halfway decent discussion here rather than the constant drumbeating of vitriol. Clueless? I'm clueless? Yeah, right. And again, I am not supporting her nor am I a feminist simply because I see reality and have lived it. The truth is the truth regardless of the labels you wish to apply to it to suit your own prejudices.

[saltpoint]

16. If you take the principles of the archteypal feminine and you mesh them

into public service, you DON'T get Hillary Clinton.

You get Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Bella Abzug, and Barbara Boxer, for example, but you don't get Hillary "I just love me some Rupert Murdock" Clinton.

[scheming daemons]

3. ...... while dodging sniper fire...

...

[RestoreGore]

6. Someone else who refuses to read n/t

[saltpoint]

8. More women-as-victim silliness from the pro-Hillary camp.

The most strident these posts, the less respect you cast toward your candidate.

She's lost the ground she's lost owing to her sense of entitlement. Not male or female entitlement. Entitlement.

[RestoreGore]

17. My candidate was John Edwards. You really are ignorant, aren't you?

The article raises a truly important question regarding how women are expected to act in politics, and you just turn into another vitriolic screed. I am NOT a victim BTW. I am a survivor.

[saltpoint]

19. Ah, don't be sore because you're backing a losing Senator versus the

surviving winning Senator.

Obama outflanked Clinton from pre-Iowa and has more or less taken her out of serious contention. She's still in the race, sqawking about "we'll see" scenarios, but she's lost it and she knows she's lost it.

So do her handlers.

Also, she's broke.

Also, she's a boring speaker.

[RestoreGore]

23. Are you always this dense? I am not backing EITHER OF THEM

However, I do believe ANY woman running for president would have the same struggles in the current atmosphere. But since it appears for the most part that people on this site are simply too hateful to even see past that, forget it. No wonder so many have dropped off from posting here. This place is a cesspool.

[saltpoint]

26. Yes, to answer your question. I'm dense now, and am always so.

Always have been.

Make a note of it and speak in broader strokes, please.

[scheming daemons]

10. I read it... dismissing Hillary's lies as "coloring the experience" is pathetic....

She lied. Blatantly. At least four times.


She thought nobody would check up on it.



We already have a President like that... Don't want another one.

[RestoreGore]

18. yes, and they ALL lie so pick the one whose lies aren't that bad for you.That's all politics is

And that president we have now is one we allowed to stay in power for eight years for all those lies. We all are really such hypocrites.

[RestoreGore]

5. Women In Congress: Breaking The Glass Ceiling

http://www.smu.edu/smunews/womenincongress/

Women In Congress: Breaking The Glass Ceiling

Quotes and Stories from Women in Congress

“A Congresswoman must look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, speak on any given subject with authority and most of all work like a dog.”

Representative Florence Dwyer (R-NJ, 1957-1973)
Quoted in Karen Foerstel, Biographical Dictionary of Congressional Women

• • •
Women candidates “can’t afford…not to be nice, immediately be branded as a bitch.”

Political Consultant Beth Sullivan
Quoted in Witt, et. al., Running as a Woman

• • •
When you ask a man to run, he says, ‘Okay, but the party is going to have to do this for me, and the party is going to have to do that for me, and you are going to have to throw a fundraiser for me.’ When you ask a woman to run, she says, ‘Do you think I’m qualified?’

Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-CA, 2003-present)
Interview by the Authors

• • •
“Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.”

Representative Pat Schroeder (D-CO, 1973-1997) in her book,
Twenty-four Years of House Work and the Place is Still a Mess

[KittyWampus]

11. What a load of CRAP! How about BE YOURSELF and don't lie about experience? How about hiring staff

that's competent? Running a viable campaign?

[RestoreGore]

20. yes, how about that for ALL of them?

[DJ13]

12. Why try to be what she's not?

Her biggest problem with likeability comes from her always trying to be something she's not to suit the moment or the expectations of her audience.

Remember the Gore is "stiff" talk in 2000?

Hillary has a similar problem in that people see her, but they wont ever see the real person behind the mask.

No conviction to just be herself, always trying to be what she thinks others expect of her.

Of course its too late in the game now, a smarter politician would have understood that she won NH because she had given up pretending to be what people expected, but she didnt, she became somewhat cocky and went right back to being a different person to fit each audience, so she's stuck now.

[RestoreGore]

21. Finally, an intelligent response

Thank you and I agree.

[DJ13]

22. You're welcome!

:toast:

[C_U_L8R]

13. It's an equal opportunity failure

It has nothing to do with men or women, black or white, or any other abstraction.
Hillary's failure is all hers. She made it. She owns it.

[saltpoint]

15. She can't very stick to a policy until she HAS a policy.

Are we asked to consider the virtues of the Hillary Clinton of IT TAKES A VILLAGE or the manipulations of the Murdock & Scaife Show?

I don't like the on-again, off-again hat trick ideology she puts forth to voters. It's untrsutworthy and jagged and geared for the heart of the 1990s.

I want somethin' new and I want somethin' better.

[RestoreGore]

24. "Remember The Ladies"- Good Article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marie-wilson/remember-the-ladies_b_93059.html

People are loathe to believe this is true, but here are the facts: the U.S. ranks an astonishing 71st in the world when it comes to women's political representation - behind such stalwarts of democracy as Iraq (33rd), Sudan (65th), and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (57th). There are only nine women governors, less than three percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women, only one woman leads a Fortune 50 company and we are stuck at approximately 22% of state legislators nationwide.

As Deborah Rhode of Stanford says, America likes to think of itself as a fair country, and to believe that women are represented fairly in every sector-- but that sentiment is a far cry from reality.

Just as America needed the Roosevelts' New Deal back in the 1930s, today, America's women are in need of their own new deal -- and a new conversation about gender in America. Because whatever we may try to convince ourselves, parity has not been achieved on the gender front. When, in the first installment of John Adams, Abigail told her husband to "Send a woman to the Congress," because "she might knock some sense into them," I thought about how sadly familiar her struggle feels even in this 21st Century environment.

end of excerpt
~~~~

For anyone who actually understands the topic of this OP.

[RestoreGore]

25. Has Clinton's candidacy caused a sexist backlash?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120674839234873285.html?mod=yhoofront

excerpt.

Sen. Clinton, the onetime front runner, has had to recast herself as the fighting underdog. There are many reasons for that beyond gender, of course. Among other things, she faces the perception, shared by many women, that she is a politically polarizing figure. And her opponent, Sen. Obama, has galvanized young people, including many women who don't see gender as a defining issue.

But even some women who don't support Sen. Clinton express unease about the tone of some attacks on her. "Why is it OK to say such horrible things about a woman?" asks Erika Wirkkala, who runs a Pittsburgh public-relations firm and supports Sen. Obama. "People feel they can be misogynists, and that's OK. No one says those kinds of things about Obama because they don't want to be seen as racist."

The concern among some women about sexism comes amid signs that women's progress in the workplace has stalled or even regressed. In 2007, women earned median weekly wages of 80.2 cents for every dollar earned by men, down from 80.8 cents in 2006 and 81 cents in 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic.

At the nation's largest 500 companies, women account for 50% of managers, but hold just 15.4% of senior executive jobs, down from 16.4% in 2005, according to a survey by Catalyst, the New York research firm and women's advocacy group. Almost three-quarters of these senior women are in jobs that rarely lead to the corner office. The number of senior women in "line" jobs that involve running a business, with responsibility for profits and losses, dropped to 27.5% last year from 29% in 2005, according to Catalyst.

At U.S. law firms, women accounted for 17.9% of partners in 2006, up from 14.2% of partners 1996, according to the directory of legal employers compiled by the National Association for Law Placement, even though women received 48% of law degrees granted in 2006 and 43.5% in 1996.

Katherine Putnam, president of Package Machinery Co., a West Springfield, Mass., equipment manufacturer, recalls that at a lunch she attended recently, a group of male chief executives "started talking about what an awful b---- Hillary was and how they'd never vote for her." She says she kept quiet. "I didn't want to jeopardize my relationship with them," she says. "But their remarks were a clear reminder that although I could sit there eating and drinking with them, and work with them, instinctively their reaction to me isn't positive."

end of excerpt.
~~
I say yes, but of course, no one will admit it because it's Hillary Clinton.