“Well, I hope you’d vote for the best candidate, regardless of gender or race.”
“She is the best candidate. She’s smart, she knows how to play the game, she has visibility, she’s been through shit and survived, she’s someone who would have made it on her own, without her connection to her husband. I really believe that – she’s made me believe that.”
“What do you think about what many liberals are saying, the ones who write on the blogs I frequent? That she’s a corporatist, that she takes lobbyist money, that she’s beholden to big money?”
“Well, how does a candidate win with the way things are currently set up? Most of her voters are wage earners and even with massive amounts of voter contributions, she can’t compete against what corporations and groups can provide. I think that unless we make laws about this, that this is the only way to go, that the money has to come from somewhere and that we can’t fight fire with small sticks and stones. Most of the voters work for a corporation – are we going to tell them to quit their jobs because it supports an evil system? It’s unrealistic.
And you are a corporatist, Mom. You work for a corporation, because it has the best benefits. You quit ten years ago, and now you are working for them again. Why have you gone back? You told me it’s because you have to secure the future for you and for us. I think she has to do the same thing, for now, and I can’t criticize her if I see nothing wrong in what you have to do.”
I have to think about this. This was a conversation I had a few weeks ago when I stole away from home with my oldest daughter, who was oldest enough to vote in the 2004 election, having turned eighteen that year. She’s too young to really remember the Clinton years, and some of her exposure to the Clinton story has been persuaded by her first long term boyfriend of a few years ago, a Bosnian immigrant, whose family had great things to say on how Clinton and Wes Clark were heroes and rescued the Bosniaks from genocide. Her other impressions probably come from my liberal commentary or my insistence that my daughters watch the occasional Clinton speech, like Bill’s elegy at Corinna Scott King’s funeral. Because, you know, he can really grab an audience when he doesn’t ramble too long.
My daughter’s opinion on Hillary isn’t colored by the negatives of the Clinton administration much, due to her age in the time of Clinton. What she sees now is a viable woman candidate, and frankly, I had no idea that it would mean so much to her.
“You remember how you always had to tell Dad to look behind things, like behind the milk jug in the refrigerator for the jam? Well, you always look behind things, Mom, before you ask for help.”
“You know how you never have a problem asking for directions when we travel? And you pay attention when you get directions? Dad still doesn’t and I have no idea how he ever drove taxi years ago, because he thinks his sense of direction is great, but it’s not.”
“I think women know how to use their resources and they know how to communicate. I don’t really understand why this country has never elected a woman President.”
“So, do you see this as a woman thing versus a man thing?”
“Maybe it is. Maybe it should be.”
She graduated from an all girls high school in 2004 and she reminded me of the school’s motto, “Giving voice to young women”.
How much of the young female voter does she represent?
Here’s an interesting thought. If we elect a woman now, does this make it a better possibility that I will have the chance to vote again for a woman for President before I exit this life, assuming I live another 20, 30 years?
The question can easily fit the parallel of voting for Obama. If I vote for a black President now, what is the impact on upcoming generations of youth who will vote for the President in the future, who may run for office on the basis of the changing political reality that they can win? If we elect another white male President now, what are the chances that we socially and psychologically decrease the number of future possibilities for President in the future – of all races and genders?
I think these are questions that, if answered, are not the only deciding factors on who we vote for in 2008. But make no mistake, these are critical issues in play this time around.
What doors will be opened, or closed once more, based on who we vote for next?
What do your voting age daughters think?
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and none of them want to be POTUS.
Not so surprising, really. What have we given them, historically, that would make the task desirable?
I don’t in general have any argument with your daughter’s points, and she sounds like a great kid . . . but really you shouldn’t let that pass by.
Working for a corporation because you need a job (and everyone needs a job) is not the same as /running for President/ . . . not everyone needs to run for President.
Further: thinking that corporations should be able to operate at all, is not the same as thinking that they should have speech rights equivalent to an individuals.
Now . . . those things don’t affect your daughter’s other point, which was: this is what you have to do, now, to get elected. If things change in the future, well and good and we all hope they do. Nevertheless, now is now. I take it that this was your daughter’s other point.
And that’s fine. One could talk about that for awhile.
It’s just that first point I mentioned. You should really not worry about that one.
a woman as President of the United States of America…
would be great. A black man… would be great. How about the potential for this a ticket: Hill and Barack or Barack and Hill, however it falls… awesome!
Questions raised are great.
Just not sure about Mrs. Clinton… but it does make me feel squeezed… between my vote and history
Barack… i think he will be president, i’m not sure this time around.
my oldest is 19, but not able to vote. if i were in a state where it would make a difference, i might register her and wheel her into the booth and ‘help’ her vote…but it wouldnt make a difference. not in delaware.
my 13-year-old has a crush on kucinich. she’s age-appropriately idealistic, and wonderfully, lovably bleeding-hearted.
She is mostly apolitical except when it comes to women’s and GLBT rights.
My guess is that having done high school in Arkansas with Hillary Clinton in the Governor’s Mansion, she’ll vote for Hillary.
but the one ticket I’d lay down money as unbeatable is some combination of Clinton and Obama. That isn’t necessarily the ticket I’d like, but I’d be willing to bet the highest pro-Democrat voter turnout with those two on the ballot. For all the reasons you outlined in this diary.
And I can understand it. If there were an openly gay candidate on deck, it’d be a lot easier for me to view his/her record positively and overlook flaws just for the chance of having a gay Commander-in-Chief. Is that irrational? Yes and no: voting is about best interests, and I would feel at least on issue of major importance to me I’d have a more sympathetic ear.
other than, “Mom, please just shut up.” Sadly she thinks that politics is b.s. She feels like her family is disinfranchised by the Right unless we want to be defenders of the Christian faith and send daddy to kill all the bad Muslims while we all cheer and then there is the Left who sometimes doesn’t seem to honestly care about the well being of military families any more than the Righties and who can be just as hateful when soldiers don’t seem to be doing their bidding. She just wants to ignore politics and live a life that ignores politics and I suppose she will because she tends to do what she decides to do.