Tuesday, January 15, 2008

You Say You Haven't Been Following the Presidential Race in Brain-Numbing Detail?

Then let me give you the nickel summary so that you can be informed as you head to your primary.

Michigan folk would have to weigh in on the relative effectiveness of Huckabee's campaign approach, but color me skeptical:
I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

And the race-baiting by Clinton surrogates and ensuring responses by the Obama campaign seem to be at a truce, for the moment. You missed the drama, you say? Lucky you. I'm not sure which is more painful to watch, though, that, or this sort of thing

Get it?? She's like a chick, with PMS and shit!

Also, by the six-degrees-of-separation principle, Obama kind of sort of is approvingly tied, in some vague fashion, to Louis Farrakhan. Or something. But the important part is that he hasn't denounced him. So he needs to pipe up on that, tout suite. Voters are waiting.

4 comments:

Toby said...

Actually, I think the cartoon could be read to say that her "crying episode" in NH helped win her supporters and the primary, so a President H. Clinton would use further "crying episodes" to get her way, not that a female president would be a hormonal wreck. Either way, though, not terribly funny.

Laura said...

Ah, but the "manipulation through tears" plays into a whole female stereotype with which people need to be familiar to interpret that cartoon (women are emotional; pms makes chicks craaaaazy; it's impossible to know what women want; women cry to manipulate), and of course these frames dictated how the original incident was perceived and interpreted by the press (and I point out, lest we forget, that it didn't involve any actual crying).

Think about it this way. Male politicians cry (I can pull up examples), and it doesn't turn into a series of headlines posing larger questions: manipulation? humanity exposed? too delicate and fragile to get the job done? will this person burst into tears during a mideast peace summit?

And in larger terms, do we generally read a lot of analysis on whether male candidates are too cold and calculating? Whether they're "human" enough? Or whether they might just be too darned sensitive to handle the upsetting aspects of running the free world?

Toby said...

I agree that male politicians crying is less loaded but remains an issue. Apparently Ed Muskie cried in NH during his presidential bid and everyone assumed he was too much of a wuss to hack it. So, men crying because of losing = wuss; men crying because of sad sports movie or similar situation, okay.
Men may not be judged on the same inane/offensive criteria as women, but they are nonetheless--eg Gore too nerdy, Kerry too French, v. W as a good old boy and someone you'd want to have a beer with (as if we wanted Cooter running the country).

Laura said...

True, and point taken. But these guys and instances are taken individually. It's the difference between implying John Edwards is fixated on his hairstyle (negatively evaluating him on a trival detail) and the cultural assumption the criticism draws on: gay gay gay! Gay men are vain and girly (which brings up a whole set of assumptions about women)! So you're slamming just Edwards, but the tool you're using is to slam an entire class of people.

A more analogous situation would be Kennedy: wouldn't a Catholic president just be in thrall to the Pope? Isn't that what those Catholics are like? The Hillary undercurrent is: knowing what we know about Women (wink wink, nudge nudge), can they handle this president'in thing?