Beyond November 4: The Joy of Politics

Like many people at this moment - regardless of who they will vote for or have early-voted for - I am not feeling particularly joyful about November 4. Since the conventions, I have had little enthusiasm for the available presidential candidates, which came as a letdown because of the great enthusiasm I had for the candidate I am still convinced was the best qualified and who I know was not given an equal opportunity by her own Party to become its nominee.

Senator Clinton has publicly stated that there is almost no chance that she will run again for the Presidency and it seems clear that she neither expects nor desires a position in an Obama administration should there be one. It appears that Senator Clinton intends to focus her political career on the Senate. That bodes well for the Senate.

But now ask yourself, if Senator Clinton is not available for a presidential run in four or eight years, can you think of a woman who would, somebody who the Democratic Party could be grooming, as it groomed Senator Obama after his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Party Convention?

If you are stumped, I suggest you read this column by Susie Tompkins Buell, excerpted below (emphases added):

The apparel company I started in the 1960s, and eventually sold in 1996, was all about women. The fact that I had two daughters and two nieces played into my interest in the full integration of women into U.S. life.

But it was the example of Ann Richards, the late and great governor of Texas, that first got me focused on women running for--and winning--elective office.

Watching Ann Richards in 1994, as she defended her incumbency against George W. Bush, I saw the urgency and need for female candidates. Ann's political life also exemplified the joy of politics, if practiced with the right sense of individual flair and unquestionable sincerity. Who can forget her famous line at the '88 Democratic National Convention, delivered with high humor and impeccable timing against the elder President Bush: "Poor George. He cain't help it--he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

...

But as important as Ann and Barbara [Boxer] have been in my political life, no one equals the impact of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I met her that same year, 1992, when her husband was making his first run for the White House.

Like so many who met Hillary--so many women especially--I wondered, "Wait a minute. Why isn't she the one who's running?"

I stayed in close touch with Hillary during the Clinton years in the White House and stepped up both my giving to Democratic causes and my personal involvement in politics. I became active in the party's Women's Leadership Forum. I was still rather fresh and new to politics, so I tended to do things a bit differently.

Part of my involvement was to host events for various Democratic candidates and committees in my San Francisco home. As I did more and more fundraisers for and with women, I deepened my belief--which stemmed back to the female culture of my business--that when women get together, whether in business or politics or other aspects of life, things somehow become more soulful, more personal.

And we also get things done.

...

A good example of that is a women's organization that I support called Emerge America. It is a training program for Democratic women aspiring to run for public office, which started in California. Now, there are affiliates in seven states and appears to be on track to train women in more states in the years to come. As time goes by my conviction only grows that women's leadership holds great promise for our nation, and for the world.

So it was only natural that I would support Hillary's run for president full-throttle. Like the candidate herself, and so many others, I put my heart and soul into her historic candidacy.

The fact that Hillary ran so well did not surprise me. But I was dismayed to see the sexism that arose continually along the campaign trail. That Hillary would be called on to withdraw from the Democratic race when it was still so tight was the straw that broke the camel's back. No one would have asked a man to drop out.

I had to do something in response. I joined with other women to start a new political action committee, WomenCount PAC, which ran ads protesting sexist attacks on Hillary and gained enormous press attention. It has since evolved into a multi-candidate PAC that supports female candidates who champion women's issues.

We have also formed a nonprofit arm called WomenCount, an online women's political movement that is a kind of Moveon.org for women. We'll be creating awareness campaigns and mobilizing women around issues that matter to them as well as around female candidates.

...

Recently I made an analogy at a women's luncheon between government and house management. The political leadership of our government today is about 20 percent female. Imagine a household where 20 percent of the management is female. Imagine decisions around budget, health, schools and community under leadership that's 20 percent female.

It's unimaginable.

I've run both a business and a household, and I'm here to tell you they, as well as our nation, stand to gain a great deal when at least 50 percent of the leadership is female. I believe we cross a threshold for social change when women are actively involved in leading the way.

That's why I'm funding serious political change. Too much is at stake, and we've come too far to turn back.

I myself have donated to WomenCount PAC. I took particular joy in doing so because WomenCount has decided to conscientiously abstain from endorsing a candidate this year. As the organization's website explains: "We are often asked whether we have made an endorsement in the presidential election. We have decided to hold off for now – not because we’re avoiding it, but because we do not want that to be our focus. Instead, we want to shine the spotlight on the critical issues that emerged from the primary. Thus, our “stop the silence” campaign. Once we’ve achieved our goals on that issue, we’ll turn to you for advice on what to tackle next."(Buell herself writes in the complete version of her column that "in time, [she] came out publicly in support of Sen. Barack Obama.")

Today I read about how hard Senator Clinton is working for downticket Democrats and how she is seen as having "done more for Obama than any losing candidate has ever done for a presidential nominee." I found myself demoralized. I realize that it is both in Senator Clinton's character and to her advantage to work hard for the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee, regardless of how the Party or the nominee treated her or her candidacy. Perhaps I should be uplifted by Senator Clinton's show of loyalty. But to me the current dynamic is an all too familiar one: the woman is lauded when she works for the man, villified when she worked for herself.

So I am with WomenCount in believing that the more important issue is how to make sure that our elected political leadership includes proportionate representation for women - meaning that over 50% of our political leaders should be women. While I do not have Susie Buell's means, I am dedicating myself to use whatever resources I have at my disposal to realizing this goal. Reading Susie Buell's words made me realize that I can dedicate myself to this goal, and that lifted my spirits. I can see a way to find joy in politics again.

I look forward to hosting my first dinner party or sherry hour or afternoon tea for a woman candidate running for office. Maybe, eventually, the person I aid might even be groomed by my Party to be President of the United States of America.

[Special thanks to the friend who sent me Susie Tompkins Buell's column.]

Comments

[DYB]

I read the column (very nice.) But I'm still stumped! What qualified Democrat woman can run in 4 or 8 years if Senator Clinton will not? I very much doubt that the DNC is grooming any woman!

[ainnj]

I am 50 years old and I would not wager on my ever seeing another woman running for POTUS on the democratic ticket in my lifetime.

Despite their gender, I cannot blindly support downticket democrats any longer. I find myself more and more disgusted with the democratic party and their candidates, male or female, and with myself for being such a idiot for the past 32 years and believing the democrats were somehow politically and morally superior to republicans.

I hesitate to support any woman democratic candidate that is supported by a PAC (which of course includes most of them) as I saw how female politicians (mccaskill, etc.) who got to where they are today on the backs of women like Ann Richards, Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, were all too eager and amazingly quick to stab those pacs and those political icons in the back to get to where they are today which is in the pocket of obama.
Nope, not me, no more.

[lexia]

I've watched with increasing despair as sexism became common currency in U.S. culture over the past 30 years.

There were my highly educated female friends who insisted that exclusion from a religion's government or from a club or from a country's human rights was horribly wrong if based on race, an individual choice and negligible if based on sex. There were my less educated friends who gave back television's overt pushing of sexism as the norm, racism as an always to be ridiculed or attacked bigotry.

There was the New York Times, with its bogus articles on how women deserved the bigotry inflicted on us. There were Newsweek and Time, for all their cartoonish simplicity still in every medical waiting room and ridiculously, in most college offices somewhere.

I just do not understand why American women support this. The women I knew that I thought had some integrity or some concern for their own agency have never done anything but look aside, or excuse, or comply. When times got too bad for them they left the country, but they never renounced their support of these kind of opinion sources.

Women are a paradigm for the intransigence of oppression. If we could solve it for ourselves, it would be solved for everyone.

[Mirlo]

"the woman is lauded when she works for the man, villified when she works for herself"
this makes me think of a former "superior" of mine, he was CEO of an Multinational Company, I was his assistant and member of the executive branch. He said to me: "I want you to think, but not independantly". This was 25 years ago; at the time I was hoping and working for progress then. Where are we now??

[ccinatl]

I can see no joy in politics right now. I see only desperation and overwhelming sadness.