Answering Earl:The Animus Against HIllary (& Romney)

Earl Ofari Hutchinson asks a couple of really good questions concerning the enmity directed at Hillary. I’d like to take a swing at them, but I’m not exactly qualified. I am not an impassioned Hillary hater. True, I am not enamored of her, but neither do I hate her. I do, however, have some insight on part of his question.

For the real haters, there are no really good answers or explanations. They have hated both Bill and Hillary from the start. They dogged them, seeing them as a team, and fought them at every turn. Personally, I don’t understand the depth of their animus. One theory holds that this is a cultural left-over from Vietnam and the social issues around drugs, sex and the war that rent this nation 40 years ago. This explanation I do not believe fully explains the venom on the right, but it does fit into why many liberals have moved on to Obama in order both to change the generational context and nostalgically to look for another Robert, not John, Kennedy.

I have a clearer idea however why she is not broadly loved. Despite her obvious intelligence, her growing skill in public speaking, her ability both to take a punch and give one, there is a certain magic that is missing. The idea of her plays better than the reality. Her negatives are high, not simply with the right-wingers who hate her but also with Democrats. Her support has been wide but not deep. In Iowa when the likely caucus goers are asked to name their first, second and third choices, she comes in third. (Okay, you may need to be a political junkie to know that this indicates very fragile support)

Her chief flaw is pandering—a trait she may have picked up from Bill. Unfairly, she lacks his charm. She shares with Romney the impression that she will say anything, do anything or seem to believe anything to get a vote. It is not one critical sin or transgression but an accretion of shifting that undermines a sense of authenticity. She supported anti-flag burning legislation, we must think not so much out of conviction as political convenience. While I do no to sit in judgment of her faith, the cross around her neck seems to have appeared only after announcing herself as a candidate. Her shifting stands on both the war and immigration do not seem principled but political.

I believe this will sink her and her Republican doppelganger, Mitt Romney. He too believed passionately in core values on the liberal side when running in Massachusetts and did a series of 180s when presenting for national office. To have had an epiphany on one issue is, well, one thing, but to have changed on a panoply of defining issues bespeaks a certain inuathenticity.

I believe this election will be about authenticity. I believe that we want to have some idea of what our next president believes and not simply measure rhetorical skills, spin and slick advertising. Many otherwise liberal folks voted for Reagan because he seemed real. I know liberals who opposed McCain on many core issues but were drawn to his focus and sense of mission. Huckabee is catching Romney not just because the Evangelical values voters are drawn to him, and not because there are Mormon haters (though sadly there are) but because he seems to believe something.

With Republicans searching for the next Reagan and Dems for the next Bobbie, I believe that both want someone to believe in more than they want ideology. It is instructive that after RFK’s assassination some of his followers—counter intuitively to the naïve experts—went to arch populist and bigot George Wallace. RFK’s popularity, as Reagan’s, transcended party-line and struck people as both passionate and genuine.

A Hillary v Romney election would be about money, spin and shape shifting. Whether or not they are, by dint of experience or platform, the best choices to be president, a Huckabee v Obama election would actually be about something: at least it would contain elements of substance.