Today is #MadamPresidentsDay — check out Scan’s diary to see how you can participate in an all day fundraiser for Clinton’s campaign!
Today's Hillary News & Views begins with Clinton’s own words about what President Obama’s legacy means to her.
On January 20, 2017, America will begin our next chapter. A new president will stand on the steps of the Capitol, raise one hand, and take the oath of office. From that moment on, he or she will decide whether we defend and build on the progress we’ve made under President Obama—or tear it all away.
That feels pretty personal to me—not just as an American who supports President Obama, but also as someone who was proud to work alongside him at the White House.
I remember vividly the day after the 2008 election when President-elect Obama asked me to come see him in Chicago. It turned out that he would ask me to be secretary of state. But first, we talked about everything he was doing to get ready for his first term—and everything he was learning about the reality of the economic crisis our country was facing. The president-elect was getting briefings every day, sometimes several times a day. And the news was not good. He turned to me and said, “It is so much worse than they told us.”
He was right.
By the time President Obama was sworn into office, we were on the brink of another Great Depression. Before the worst was over, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, 5 million Americans lost their homes, and 13 trillion dollars of family wealth was wiped away. Meanwhile, our auto industry—the pride of American manufacturing and ingenuity for decades—was on the verge of collapse. It turned out to be the second-worst financial crisis in our country’s history.
President Obama changed all that. Look where we are today. We’ve had 70 straight months of private-sector job growth. Our businesses have created 14.1 million jobs. The unemployment rate is the lowest in seven years. And the auto industry just had its best year ever.
That’s a pretty outstanding record for any president—let alone one who took office amid an economic disaster.
That’s not all. We’ve imposed the toughest regulations on Wall Street since the 1930s. We created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just over a year ago—and it’s already returned nearly $11 billion to consumers.
We’ve restored our standing around the world. Under President Obama’s leadership, we worked with Congress and the United Nations to impose crippling sanctions against Iran, which paved the way for a landmark deal that will keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We stood up for LGBT rights and women’s rights around the world. We brought Osama bin Laden to justice. And thanks to a lot of painstaking diplomacy by the president and his team, nearly 200 countries have signed on to a landmark agreement to tackle the urgent threat of climate change.
Then there’s the progress we’ve made toward a cause close to my heart: putting quality, affordable health care within reach for everyone. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 18 million Americans now have health coverage. Millions more are receiving benefits like free preventive care. Americans can sleep easier knowing they’ll never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Democrats have been trying to pass universal health care since Harry Truman’s administration. President Obama got it done. Now we need to build on it, bring down out-of-pocket costs, and make sure every American can get the care they deserve.
If you take a step back and look at all America has achieved over the past eight years, it’s remarkable to see how far we’ve come. But you’d never know it from listening to the Republicans. They’re quick to demonize and demean President Obama. At the last GOP presidential debate, two candidates referred to him as a “child.” That kind of racially coded rhetoric has no place in our politics. Instead of insulting our president, we should be thanking him.
Republicans aren’t just harshly criticizing the president. They’re threatening to undo just about everything he has achieved. They want to repeal the Affordable Care Act; in fact they’ve voted to repeal or dismantle it more than 50 times. They’re hard at work dismantling workers’ rights and voting rights. They want to take away women’s rights to make our own health decisions. Some even want to reverse marriage equality—one of the greatest civil rights accomplishments in American history.
In short, they want to drag us backward and undo all the progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve. We can’t let that happen.
As president, I will carry forward the Democratic record of achievement. I’ll defend President Obama’s accomplishments and build upon them. I’ll work to get incomes rising for middle-class families, make college affordable, alleviate the crushing burden of student debt, protect LGBT Americans from discrimination, preserve women’s access to health care and reproductive choice, and keep America safe from threats at home and abroad. And I’ll never allow the Affordable Care Act to be repealed.
We’ve made tremendous progress over the past eight years. That shouldn’t be dismissed or taken lightly. Let’s keep that progress going. Let’s make sure no one turns the clock back. We’ve come too far. We’ve accomplished too much. We can do even more for our families, our communities, and the country we love. And together, we can build an economy and a country that works for everyone. That would be truly revolutionary.
There’s been a new wave of newspaper endorsements from leading publications in Nevada, Texas, and Florida.
Las Vegas Sun endorses:
They share the same essential values and genuinely champion the middle class. The difference is that Sanders, the rebellious democratic socialist, would be going into battle outnumbered in pursuit of his domestic agenda and poorly equipped in foreign affairs. Clinton has established strengths and demonstrated successes in both arenas.
Clinton has consistently presented a more aggressive and realistic tone in dealing with terrorists — a stance that will bode her well in the general election as the nation worries about threats from abroad and within. Clinton would bring surety and confidence to the White House. This is not the time for a new president to learn as he goes.
In Clinton we also have a savvy stateswoman with an established understanding of world affairs and building allegiances. She is widely applauded for shaping and executing — with the support of Russia, China and the European Union — economic sanctions against Iran that crippled the nation and were used as leverage to bring Iran to the negotiating table. Clinton’s diplomacy also dissuaded Hamas from firing rockets into Israel. While Clinton was traveling to 112 countries, her campaign for gender equality has been woven into our foreign-policy mission.
We prefer the pragmatism embraced by Clinton: to further develop the foundation of Obamacare that already is law. It has extended the security of health insurance to 17.6 million Americans and brought down to 10 percent the number of Americans without insurance, thanks in part to the law’s requirement that everyone be allowed coverage no matter what their pre-existing conditions might be. Honing the law is more achievable than starting anew with a plan that would be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill.
Clinton is no newcomer to the plight of the uninsured. As first lady, she played a crucial early, inside role in shaping and winning bipartisan support for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which delivers health care to millions of children.
For those who wish for stronger gun control, Sanders’ record won’t bring much confidence. He explains that because Vermont is a rural state with many hunters, guns are part of the region’s fabric. And that’s fine, but as a federal lawmaker, Sanders voted five times against the Brady bill, arguing that the issue of waiting periods should be left to the states. More troubling, Sanders supported a law that protects gun manufacturers, dealers, importers and distributors from being held liable when their weapons are used criminally. For years, that bill was at the top of the NRA’s agenda. Sanders helped pass it.
For her part, Clinton supports comprehensive background checks, closing loopholes in purchasing weapons at gun shows and online, keeping weapons away from domestic abusers and those with serious mental health issues, and banning people on no-fly lists from acquiring weapons. None of these regulatory measures would violate the Second Amendment.
Dallas News endorses:
It’s been 44 years since Hillary Clinton arrived in Texas as a firebrand feminist working to register Hispanics and others in South Texas to vote for a long-shot liberal senator running to unseat President Richard Nixon. George McGovern lost badly that year and Nixon engineered his own shameful exit two years later.
But Clinton? She’s been in the public eye ever since, and after a lifetime of remarkable service and unending controversy she’s back asking Texans to help make her the 2016 Democratic nominee for president.
Democrats should vote for her March 1. She’s a better choice than another long-shot liberal senator, her surging rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
A better choice not because he’s too liberal to win in November, though he is. She’s better because over her lifetime, Clinton has learned to temper her idealism without losing it. She’s learned to advance her agenda even when it means letting others advance too. She’s cultivated allies.
Such lessons came hard for her, as they usually do. As first lady, she led President Bill Clinton’s push for universal health care. Imperious and uncompromising, she failed spectacularly.
But Clinton kept fighting. She salvaged health care for poor children before it was over. And when, in 2001, she was sworn in as New York’s junior senator, she faced enormous hostility. Six years later, she left with a reputation for bipartisanship, hard work and effectiveness.
She fought hard, some say too hard, in 2008 to beat Barack Obama in the same Democratic primaries. After a bruising loss, she showed humility and joined his administration as secretary of state. She crisscrossed the globe, tirelessly strengthening this country’s diplomatic reach in the face of fast-evolving security threats and global crises. That’s experience that none of her rivals, in either party, can match.
As president, she’d push a mostly liberal agenda, as Sanders would. But her passion for change is leavened by a pragmatism — and a recognition of costs — his lacks.
She still supports universal health care, for example. But she’s wisely content to defend and, where possible, extend the Affordable Care Act.
Clinton wants college affordable for all. But her plans call for cost-sharing between Washington and the states, and for students to pay a small share too. Sanders would tax Wall Street and make college free.
San Antonio Express endorses:
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is between a candidate who wants to ignite a revolution and another who promises a push for progressive incrementalism.
Choosing the former may be enticing to some, but the latter is far more preferable if you are interested in what is far more doable. That difference alone makes Hillary Clinton the best choice for president in the Democratic primary, but she is far better prepared for the job as well.
It is not that the problems Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders outlines aren’t real — former U.S. Sen. and Secretary of State Clinton broadly agrees on many of these problems. And it’s not that many of the nation’s ills couldn’t benefit from dramatic reform. It’s that Sanders’ solutions — a single-payer health system and free college, for instance — have no chance to gain traction in what is still going to be a deeply divided Congress after November.
But most important, as first lady, a U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state, Clinton has demonstrated a broader sense of proportion, pragmatism and accomplishment than has Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist.
Moreover, all the key issues Sanders says require remedy, from income inequality to Wall Street abuses, are those that Clinton would also target. It is largely a matter of fantasy versus reality.
Though, on guns, she has a far better record.
As secretary of state, Clinton was a superstar, the tragedy of Benghazi notwithstanding. Yes, as a U.S. senator, she erred in voting for the war in Iraq that President George W. Bush launched. But she wouldn’t be alone in having been fooled, and she has acknowledged the mistake since. And as secretary of state, she helped Obama chart a foreign policy course weighted more properly toward diplomacy than military might, while talking about gender equality and other human rights around the world.
Her service as U.S. senator and secretary of state — and the many hits she has taken simply because she bears the name Clinton — have forged a steely and calm approach that makes her more presidential than Sanders.
Clinton’s nomination by Democrats would say much about how far the country has come on gender, but ultimately she is simply the better candidate — by far — in the Democratic race.
The Tampa Bay Times endorses:
The battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination has been surprisingly close and could stretch beyond Florida's March 15 primary. But only Clinton has the skill and experience to appeal to general election voters and build on President Barack Obama's record.
Clinton is clearly the best prepared to achieve results in each of those areas. She has long been a persuasive advocate for women, minorities and middle-income families. She knows the gritty specifics of health care policy, and she gained extensive foreign policy experience as secretary of state. The former first lady and U.S. senator is a planner, a detail-oriented leader with refined positions that are not easily condensed into an applause line. She also has demonstrated her skill as a negotiator and as a determined advocate in all sorts of situations over a lifetime in the public eye.
Improving economic opportunities for every American will require multiple approaches. Clinton has a diversified strategy that includes raising the minimum wage, closing corporate tax loopholes and investing in infrastructure and renewable energy. While she is criticized for her ties to Wall Street, she is a strong supporter of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations and would strengthen oversight of the biggest banks. She has achievable goals for lowering college costs and reducing student debt, and she would build on the successes of the Affordable Care Act by seeking to lower deductibles and drug costs.
In this era of terrorist threats and chest-thumping by Russia and North Korea, Clinton's experience as secretary of state would be particularly helpful. She is more hawkish than Obama, but unlike some Republicans she is not looking for a ground war anywhere. She recognizes the importance of following through with the nuclear agreement with Iran while holding that nation accountable for sponsoring terrorism. Clinton is a known player with deep relationships around the world, and the ability to build coalitions and effectively confront adversaries without provoking all-out war has never been more valuable.
Clinton is not mincing words regarding Obama’s nomination of a replacement for Antonin Scalia.
The Colorado Independent reports:
Responding from a podium at a downtown Sheraton hotel ballroom, Clinton called it “outrageous” that Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail have already pledged to block any replacement nominated by President Barack Obama.
“Now, I’m sure we’ll have a lot more to say about this in the coming days, so let me just make one point,” she said. “Barack Obama is president of the United States until January 20, 2017.”
The former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State indicated the American people have already had a voice in the process of selecting the next member of the high court.
“Elections have consequences,” she said, adding that the president has the responsibility to nominate a new Supreme Court justice. “And the U.S. Senate has a responsibility to vote."
To the crowd of Colorado Democrats in the audience, she said the party has a responsibility to make sure a Republican doesn’t win the White House in the fall and roll back progress Democrats have made.
Clinton said she’d been thinking about something for the past few hours after news broke that Scalia had been found dead unexpectedly at a Texas ranch. Americans might hear, she said, that the confirmation process for a new Supreme Court justice might take too long for Obama to complete during his remaining days in office.
“Well,” Clinton said, “the longest successful confirmation process in the last four decades was Clarence Thomas— and that took roughly 100 days.”
Obama, she said, would have 340 days.
“Some might say, ‘Well, yes, but this is an election year,'” Clinton went on. “OK, but the confirmation for Justice Kennedy took place in 1988. That was an election year and he was confirmed 97 to nothing.”
The former Secretary said comments like McConnell’s are “totally out of step with our history and our Constitutional principles.”
Clinton wrapped up her take on the big news of the day: “Now just a few minutes ago, President Obama said he would nominate someone to the bench— and that’s exactly what he should be doing.”
Clinton on campaign trail in South Carolina and Nevada.
Politico reports:
“I went to Flint, Michigan, on Sunday, because there we have children being poisoned by lead in the water as a result of the governor of their state trying to save money,” Clinton said.
“Here’s what I want you to know: I’m not a single-issue candidate, and this is not a single-issue country,” Clinton said, adding that she and Sanders largely agreed on increased regulation of the financial services industry.
“[Even] if we enacted our toughest plans to rein in Wall Street and shadow banking,” Clinton said, “I’d worry that we’d still have lead in the water in Flint, and we’d still have deteriorating schools here in South Carolina.”
“I will not promise you something that I cannot deliver,” Clinton added. “I will not make promises I know I cannot keep. We don’t need any more of that.”
Clinton rolled out a $125-billion proposal “to expand jobs and to invest in infrastructure and housing in communities of color and rural communities” that she said was modeled on a plan put forth by Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the only Democratic member of the state’s congressional delegation and a long-time political leader here.
The funding, she said, would come from “a tax on the largest and riskiest financial institutions.”
“Those that contributed to the great recession are going to contribute to bringing back the communities that were the hardest hit by the great recession,” she said.
Indeed, the loudest cheers at Friday’s town-hall meeting were when Clinton invoked the name of her one-time rival for the nomination – and when she hit Sanders for the Vermont independent’s Democratic apostasies during the Obama administration.
“As I pointed out last night, he has called the president weak, a disappointment, he tried to get some attention to attract a candidate to actually run against the president when he was running for reelection,” Clinton said. “He does not support, the way I do, building on the progress the president has made. And that includes building on the Affordable Care Act.”
“In the next two weeks, people here in South Carolina are going to get the chance to express your opinion,” she said. “You are choosing someone you want to be the Democratic nominee to be president and commander-in-chief – and able to take on and defeat whoever the Republicans put up. Because we must keep the White House.”
The Washington Post reports:
Hillary Clinton took her "single issue" critique of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) even further Saturday, telling an audience in the Las Vegas suburbs that she was "the only candidate who’ll take on every barrier to progress." In a call-and-response, new to her stump speech, Clinton rattled off social and political problems, and her audience loudly confirmed that they couldn't be solved simply by reforming the financial sector.
"Not everything is about an economic theory, right?" Clinton asked her audience of a few hundred activists, most of them wearing T-shirts from the unions that had promoted the rally.
"If we broke up the big banks tomorrow — and I will, if they deserve it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will — would that end racism?"
"No!" shouted her audience.
"Would that end sexism?"
"No!"
"Would that end discrimination against the LGBT community?"
"No!"
"Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?"
"No!"
"Would that solve our problem with voting rights, and Republicans who are trying to strip them away from people of color, the elderly, and the young?"
"No!"
"Would that give us a real shot at ensuring our political system works better because we get rid of gerrymandering and redistricting and all of these gimmicks Republicans use to give themselves safe seats, so they can undo the progress we have made?"
"No!"
CNN reports:
"I am not a single issue candidate and this is not a single issue country," Clinton said, a comment that is squared directly at Sanders. "Because if we were going to achieve everything about banks and money and politics, would that end racism? Would that make it automatically going to happen that people will be able to get the jobs they deserve, the housing the need, the education their children should have?"
"We have to be focused on doing everything we can to build on the progress that President Obama has made," Clinton said. "It will not surprise you to hear me say that I was deeply honored when he asked me to be secretary of state. We were partners and we became friends. And I know how hard he worked against implacable hostility at every single turn."
Clinton was introduced at church by Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon who has recently taken a stepped-up role in the former secretary of state's campaign.
"I am not here to talk about my involvement in the American civil rights movements," Lewis said, noting that he is here to introduce "my beloved sister who I have known for so many years."
"The vote is powerful, it is precious, it is the most powerful nonviolent tool in the democratic society and we must use it," Lewis added.
Politico reports:
“My opponent wants us to start all over again, throw us into a contentious national debate about a theory of [healthcare] coverage that would cost an enormous amount in taxes for every single American and would start us at zero,” Clinton said at a rally of several hundred supporters.
“I want us to make progress right now,” she said. “I happen to think a progressive is somebody who makes progress, somebody who gets things done that helps people right now.”
“I also will not you make you promises I can’t keep,” she said.
Antipathy toward Wall Street appeared to be not as vehement among Clinton’s supporters as it is among Sanders'.
“We don’t hate Wall Street,” said David Kolbe, political and legislative director for an iron-workers union that is affiliated with AFL-CIO and had endorsed Clinton.
“If we don’t have major industries building manufacturing plants or offices, we’re not working,” he said while waiting for Clinton to arrive.
“They [financiers] have to prosper, but it’s got to be a shared prosperity that skilled work has to be paid for,” he said.
More endorsements out of Flint.
Politico reports:
Rev. Hubert Miller, Rev. Al Harris and Bishop Rogers L. Jones Sr., three black religious leaders in Flint, endorsed Clinton on Sunday, citing the fact that she is the only presidential candidate to visit the ailing city and the first to bring national attention to the crisis that has been raging for two years.
"Secretary Clinton has certainly aided us in bringing added political attention to our plight in the city of Flint,” Miller said in a statement released by the campaign, “causing other politicians to move legislation on this subject, and vowing to do everything within her power to assist Flint in recovering from this sinful social experiment we call the Flint Water Crisis.”
Harris added that Clinton did not use the water crisis as a “platform to further her political agenda,” but rather brought her own spotlight to shine light on the problem. “Her voice was more than that of a politician,” he said, “it was the voice of a humanitarian.”
During her visit to Flint last week, speaking at the House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church, Clinton called on Congress to pass an emergency funding bill to replace and rebuild the water pipes in Flint. “This has to be a national priority,” she said there. “What happened in Flint is immoral.”
In announcing the endorsements, the campaign also said Clinton is asking campaign volunteers to join the Red Cross and United Way to distribute water to residents of Flint, rather than canvas for votes. Clinton is also calling on President Obama to issue a Medicaid waiver to Michigan so that Flint residents under the age of 21 will receive universal Medicaid coverage.
Clinton’s economic revitalization plan.
Cleveland.com reports:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing a $125 billion economic revitalization plan for under-served communities – particularly in minority areas, according to her campaign.
Clinton's plan calls for a $50 billion "Infrastructure for Opportunity Fund," which would provide money for public transportation programs and to rebuild water systems.
Another $25 billion would be devoted to help small businesses in poorer communities, according to her campaign.
The proposal also calls for:
$25 billion for housing and community development;
$20 billion in direct federal funding for youth job programs; and
$5 billion for prison re-entry programs.
The proposal, if implemented, could help create jobs for more than 99,000 young Ohioans in need of a job, including up to 13,000 unemployed black Ohioans between the ages of 16 and 24, according to Clinton's campaign.
U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat, praised the proposal in a statement, saying it "is just the latest example of her steadfast commitment to American families, especially those who are vulnerable and most in need of assistance."
How Clinton’s economic plans will benefit North Carolina (and South Carolina.)
The News & Observer reports:
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign says her new $125 billion economic plan for poor communities could result in up to 47,000 new jobs in North Carolina.
Clinton rolled out the plan Friday during a campaign stop at an elementary school in rural Bamberg County, S.C., and it drew immediate praise from N.C. Rep. Rodney Moore of Charlotte.
Clinton spoke to a largely African-American crowd as she pledged to help blighted communities. The campaign estimates that her plan, called the “Break Every Barrier Agenda,” would result in job opportunities for 42,000 unemployed young African-Americans and 5,000 unemployed young Latinos in North Carolina.
Clinton said her proposal would be modeled in part after a plan that U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has been pushing for years that would send federal dollars to communities with persistently high poverty.
Clinton pointed to the plight of South Carolina’s rural schools.
“Here in South Carolina, if you look at life through the eyes of a child, a lot of small towns and rural areas here, you would see crumbling schools, decrepit conditions,” said Clinton, calling the South Carolina legislature’s failure to address rundown rural schools “shameful.”
In the school gymnasium where Clinton spoke, bullet holes formed spider-like patterns in windows near the ceiling. One of two bathroom stalls was out of order. The other did not lock.
The Clinton economic proposal – funded by what the campaign calls a “tax on Wall Street” – includes $50 billion for job creation through competitive grants and expanded job training programs.
Moore issued a statement saying the plan is needed in North Carolina.
“Hillary Clinton’s plan to address unemployment amongst young North Carolinians is an important step forward, especially for communities of color,” Moore said. “For too long, the need of economic opportunity for young people of color has been ignored by Republicans in the General Assembly, which is why we need Hillary Clinton as our partner in the White House to help them get ahead and stay ahead.”
Goldie Taylor writes for The Daily Beast:
According to polling research Sanders supporters are primarily white, and they have higher levels of education and income than Clinton supporters. In 2000 The Washington Post described Nader voters as “disproportionately young, white and well-educated.”
Again, this isn’t a surprise. Because if there is anyone who can afford to vote for a candidate and genuinely not care whether he or she wins or loses, it is a young person of privilege who ultimately has very little at stake. For instance, it is doubtful that many of the white, well-educated voters who comprised Nader’s core constituency were among those who ultimately comprised the young men and women who ended up losing their lives in the War in Iraq that began under the president Nader helped elect.
And if we’re being honest, a person of privilege won’t really be that affected by who becomes attorney general or who is nominated to the Supreme Court. What I mean is, a white affluent college student will always be able to secure a safe abortion if she decides she wants one, whether it’s legal or not, just as a white affluent student is far less likely to have his life derailed by an arrest for narcotics possession than a poor black one. In both cases their familial and social networks will provide a safety net for them, which is why what motivates their voting decisions will be different than what motivates others.
The fact that Hillary is trouncing Sanders in the first primary state with a sizable black population, South Carolina, speaks volumes. There she is not only leading substantially among total voters but winning up to 80 percent of the black vote.
The reason is simple. If you are worried about your black son possibly walking out the door tomorrow and being shot in either random community violence, or by another George Zimmerman, then determining whether a candidate inspires you is probably not high on your list of Election Day priorities. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.
Most minorities do.
Recall that even with respect to Barack Obama in 2008, some African-American voters were enthusiastic from the start, but they didn’t really go all in until after he won in Iowa—that is to say, until they saw that he was truly electable. More specifically, that he could win support from diverse constituencies—African Americans as well as voters in white states. This is something Sanders hasn’t proven.
I guess the question becomes whether the needs of less privileged voters will ever become a priority for more privileged progressives who have the luxury of letting inspiration be their guide.
Dana Milbank for The Washington Post writes about sexist double standards:
At a Clinton rally last week in New Hampshire, I discussed the decibel dilemma with Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine. “It’s very hard for a woman to telegraph passion,” she explained. “When Bernie yells, it shows his dedication to the cause. When she yells, it’s interpreted in a very different way: She’s yelling at you.”
That’s not about Clinton; it’s about us. “It is a subtle kind of sexism that exists that we don’t recognize,” said Newton-Small, who literally wrote the book on the matter. “Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works,” out last month, includes a chapter on Clinton. “When women raise their voices, people tend to get their hackles up. People I talk to at Clinton events put her in a maternal role: Why is she screaming at me? Am I in trouble?”
Campaigning While Female also deprives Clinton of the ability to make lofty promises.
Sanders, for example, has a $15 trillion non-starter of a health-care plan. If Clinton floated such a plan, the media would mock it as patently absurd. But Sanders gets a pass.
Why the double standard? “Men are the guys who want to go out and buy the motorcycle, and women are the purse-string holders,” Newton-Small said. “It’s a very traditional role we are putting women into by making them the one saying, no, we can’t do all these really fun things. This is a very stereotypical box she gets put into, which then makes it very hard for her to be inspirational.”
This is the essence of Clinton’s trouble: If she can’t plausibly offer pie in the sky, and she can’t raise her voice, how does she inspire people? This hurts particularly with young voters — the same segment that shunned Clinton in 2008.
Barbara Lee writes for The Boston Globe:
If Sanders were a woman running to be commander in chief, would he be taken seriously?
My foundation’s nonpartisan research shows that women running for president must show their expertise in traditionally male-dominated areas like the economy, while also showing their prowess on “women’s issues,” like health care and education — plus, everything else. For women candidates, the devil really is in the details.
If Sanders were a woman running for president, he would need to be more than a one-issue candidate. To be sure, income inequality is a critically important problem to tackle, but if he were a woman he’d be dinged for harping on the same single issue without showcasing a leadership track record on everything else.
Sanders certainly rallies his campaign supporters around a common cause, but he doesn’t have a track record of finding common ground with his colleagues. He’s calling for a revolution on the campaign trail, but his record in the Senate doesn’t show he can work effectively to make that revolution a reality.
If he were a woman running for president, he’d have to be both competent and charismatic. Qualifications and likability are closely linked for women candidates. Women must be consistently conscious of factors affecting their likability — their voices, their emotions, their language, their faces. The same isn’t true for men. Voters evaluate men’s qualifications separately from how much they like them.
Mary Kay Henry and Randi Weingarten write for the Las Vegas Sun:
Passing the ACA was a landmark victory. We should embrace it and be proud of it. And we should now be turning our focus to the crucially important issues families grapple with day in and day out: finding a good job that pays a decent wage, getting their kids a high-quality public education and ensuring safe neighborhoods.
That does not mean our work on health care is done. We need to preserve the life-saving Affordable Care Act and work to improve it. That is exactly what Hillary Clinton has proposed to do. She has already outlined several plans including expanding affordable coverage, lowering co-pays, deductibles and costs you pay out of pocket; reigning in ultra-expensive prescription-drug costs for seniors; repealing the so-called Cadillac Tax; and slowing the growth of overall health care costs.
That’s why more than 400 Service Employees International Union and American Federation of Teachers members knocked on doors in Iowa and even more plan to knock in Nevada. In Nevada, 73,596 people are now covered under the ACA, and we know Clinton will fight to keep those people covered.
None of this is new for Clinton. She has fought to make health care more accessible since her time as first lady of Arkansas, when she obtained federal funding to expand medical services in the poorest parts of the state. In the ’90s she worked her heart out to pass comprehensive health care reform — and will be the first to tell you she still has the scars to show from it.
When health care reform was defeated in 1994, Hillary didn’t give up. She worked with Ted Kennedy, a liberal from Massachusetts, and Orrin Hatch, a conservative from Utah, to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That means every year about 8 million low-income children and pregnant women can get health care during those crucial early stages of development.
This is one of the reasons we support Clinton and have committed to turn out to vote for her. She is passionate about fighting to get families what they need and will work across party lines to make sure it gets done. That is a hard combination to find in a president. But it is a combination we need today more than ever, when our elected officials seem to spend more time launching verbal bombs than improving the lives of their constituents.
Samira Baird writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
I’m a 17-year-old girl who plans to vote for Clinton if given the chance in the general election in November.
The use of anger as political communication reminds me of my high school experiences. Here’s a story:
It’s 11th grade and I am in international relations class. I’m the sole person arguing a certain progressive point of view against three senior boys. I present my point, which is rooted in equal parts facts and figures as well as morality and human-rights expectations. Before I can finish, though, the boys have started yelling.
One boy attempts to invalidate my point completely. “In what world would that even be a legitimate response?” he questions me loudly and angrily in front of the whole class. Another guy in the back of the room yells, “Samira, just quit while you’re barely ahead!” The senior boys laugh approvingly and sneer. They usually shut down Mr. Back-of-the-Room, but today they cheer him on. After all, it looks as if he, too, is trying to take down the girl, to get me to stop arguing.
Bernie’s candidacy is no revolution. Every smart woman knows what it feels like to have a man yell at her when she says something smart. This is why I’m supporting Clinton, and there are many other girls like me who know exactly what she’s up against.
We live Clinton’s experience every day, even though our struggles against ordinary sexism are not “sexy” to report. We understand, and nod, thankfully, when Madeleine Albright stands onstage with Clinton and says “there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other,” or when Madeleine Kunin writes in the Boston Globe about the sexism she had to deal with when Sanders ran against her in Vermont. We recognize the sexist tropes launched against Clinton and repeated uncritically in the media.
At every campaign event, I have met women of diverse backgrounds who have inspired me. From these women I’ve received helpful tips, offers of internships, and compliments on my skills. I didn’t know such experiences existed, and yet, here I am, being pulled into a network of women who support other women. Women — yes, younger women, too — support Clinton because she’s building for us what men have always had: the networks and guidance we need to be successful, and the vision that women can help one another.
The media may not want to cover this type of revolution, of women who really care about other women. They prefer to pit young women against older, and declare that young women hate feminists. However, the real story is that of politically minded young women who don’t want anger and the loudest shouts ruling the day. Angry bros are the kind of thing that silence us as girls and women, and mute the nuances of smart political thought.