The Wall Street Journal-20080215-Hillary Agonistes
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Hillary Agonistes
Full Text (1375 words)I've been told that I no longer need to do yoga, take up Pilates, or study Kaballah, and I can even stop listening to Bruce Springsteen. Apparently 45 minutes at a Barack Obama rally -- preceded by two hours and 45 minutes of waiting in the snow outside to get in -- will be all it takes to change my life. Forever. An open mind, a free spirit, a loving heart, a renewed appreciation for democracy -- and possibly even thin thighs -- will be mine for keeps, if I just take in the junior senator from Illinois at a high-school gymnasium in Waukesha or a Nascar track in Pocono or an arena in Dallas. In less time than it takes to get through a single session of psychotherapy, Mr. Obama can cure me.
Meanwhile, back in Hillaryland, all I'm promised is Hillarycare.
Of course, that's not fair. Like most Democrats this time around, I feel embarrassed with the richness of both presidential candidates. The first flush of Obamarama, this latest blush of Clintonism -- either would suit me fine. But it's obvious where the real heat is: If candidates were reading material, Barack Obama would be pornography -- he's got everybody aroused, fired up and ready to go. He's turned on the body politic as no one else has in my lifetime. And it's great fun. It's good for politics, it's good for democracy, it's good for America, it's good for messianism. Young people are excited, old people are nostalgic, middle-aged people are invigorated. People are so enthralled with Mr. Obama just because it's so easy to be enthralled with him.
Which is to say, there's no accounting for charisma. Some people are simply gifted, and the only way to respond is to clear the way and let them do their magic. But this collective cathexis that created Obamamania is obviously a deep desire for authenticity, and he is the natural repository of our hidden hopes.
Mr. Obama is what the future looks like: a biracial child of divorce, schlepped halfway around the world by a conscientious but confounded single mother, abandoned by a wayward but winning Kenyan father, international but somehow still all-American, a party-hardy Harvard Law graduate. That is, an ordinary extraordinary guy, the dreamiest of all our dreams. If only every kid from a broken home could turn out to be such a fine gentleman! How can we not love him? With a million other things he could be doing, Mr. Obama actually wants to lead us. Us? What did we do to deserve him?
That's how lucky Barack Obama makes us feel.
And then there's the whole Hillary Rodham Clinton situation. What can I say? She's been called the anti-Christ, but her problem right now is that she's the anti-Obama.
There is a special kind of hate that people -- particularly women -- reserve for Hillary Clinton that is unique in contemporary politics. It's nothing like the disdain liberals feel for W., which is only to be expected, and has no special edge: Liberals believe President Bush is an undeserving doofus who made a big huge mess, that's that. But the hatred for Hillary Clinton is visceral and venal, a lot of it is female and feminist, and some of it is simply off the charts.
A young woman I respect in northern California describes Hillary as "grotesque." A middle-aged successful artist I know -- herself a bit of a virago -- thinks she's "evil." And my mother, who is admittedly a Republican, is capable of going on and on about how Hillary is in it all for herself, that she'll do anything to win, that she'll kill to push her agenda through, that she's just a disgusting human being, that the sound of Hillary's voice is enough to send her racing for the remote control to turn off her beloved Fox News. The New Republic points out that many Democrats describe Hillary Clinton as "mendacious, brutal, willing to bend (or break) any rule in pursuit of power." And they're on her side.
This special anti-Rodham anger is especially troubling because it's impossible to separate from sex or sexism. Hillary Clinton reminds me that it's possible that all powerful women are, as my friend puts it, "grotesque." They are exaggerated humans, extreme cases, everything to everybody.
Hillary is grotesque because she has gotten to where she is, indeed, by playing it every which way -- by being a career woman when that made sense, a wife when that was advantageous; working on her husband's behalf when that seemed the way to the top, then working for herself when the coast was clear; standing by her husband despite infidelities because she loved him, while belittling Tammy Wynette for offering the very advice she was ostensibly taking; pooh-poohing the prospect of having teas and baking cookies instead of having a profession, and then becoming first lady and having teas as a profession for a full eight years. Yes, Hillary Clinton will do anything, bless her heart: That is how you amass power as a woman. We hate her, because she exposes the sordid business of having it all for the grotesque thing that it actually is.
Might she have played it differently? Of course, it's possible. No one can quite explain how it is that a woman who now campaigns on the virtues of electronic health records and streamlined financial-aid forms once gave the 1969 graduation address at Wellesley College that fantasized about "a more immediate, ecstatic and penetrating mode of living." Once upon a lifetime ago, Hillary Clinton could have been Barack Obama! When did she become a technocrat? How is it that Mr. Obama beat her at her own game?
Obviously, Hillary gave something up by marrying Bill. In their particular partnership, Bill is inspiration, Hillary is perspiration, that's the way it goes. She lost her voice, and no, she did not get it back in Manchester, N.H. on Jan. 10. She's been in the business of enabling charismatic men for so long, Hillary Clinton doesn't quite know how to facilitate anything but power itself.
Still, Hillary has won big states like New York, California, and even Sen. Ted Kennedy's native Massachusetts -- and by large margins. Because, finally, the ladies turn out for her, as they did for that surprise win in the New Hampshire primary.
Pollsters say that women are the most important element of the electorate, and hate her though we do, in the end, we can't help ourselves. We see Hillary, we see Barack, and we see our own version of hell: Here is this amazing woman, top of her class, implausible marriage to impossible man, works as hard as the day is long, masters all the forms and spreadsheets of governing, even manages to raise a pretty darn good kid -- and then along comes this guy, this groovy Obamarama, with his pleasing mien, his high style, his absolute fabulousness, and he wants the top floor, corner office that she earned.
And women -- women have seen this movie, women have heard this story, women know the drill, have had their manicured fingers ready to ring that particular fire alarm for years now. Women, finally, will say no to that. Real women don't care what Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver with their easy words and easy lives have to say about any of this. No one with a job takes advice from someone with a chef.
Right now, it looks like Barack Obama will be the nominee. Hillary Clinton is unlikely to win any more primaries for a few more weeks, and at that point, it may be too late for this championship season. But pundits count her out at their own peril. That woman is a force of nature. One of these years, Hillary is going to the White House. If she has to win every single vote one by one, she'll do it. If she has to take hostages, hold a gun to the head of every voter as he enters the booth, she'll do that too. She may even cry.
Never underestimate Hillary Clinton.
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Miss Wurtzel, a student at Yale Law School, is the author of "Prozac Nation" (Houghton Mifflin, 1994).
