How She Did It: True Grit and “Intellectual Poise”
By SusanUnPC on January 10, 2008 at 9:53 PM in Uncategorized
Jason Horowitz of The Observer asked adviser Sidney Blumenthal about Hillary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire. Was it an emphasis on her personality, he inquired. Blumenthal rejected the question’s premise:
“I don’t buy any of this,” he said. “I’m not interested in this discussion. I think that policy matters and I think that who she is matters and I don’t see the difference.”
“I think this was personal triumph for her. She walked through the furnace and came out.”
Blumenthal said the win was a testament to Clinton’s “grit.”
“Look, she is sleeping two hours a night,” he said. “She has to have the stamina to keep going, she has to have the morale to keep going, she showed she has the intellectual poise to access and figure out what’s happening as it’s happening, to learn lessons immediately.”
What else contributed to Hillary Clinton’s win? The campaign had a superb “ground game” in New Hampshire. Most of all, it was women and independents (yes, independents!) who rallied to Sen. Clinton — including women who thought the male candidates “piled on” Sen. Clinton during the Saturday debate before Tuesday’s election. And, fascinating statistics show that it was young women, those women of the more mature ages of 25 to 29, who turned out for Hillary Clinton.
About that Saturday debate, Taylor Marsh took note of Sen. Barack Obama’s ungracious response in this sequence:
A question went to Hillary about change and the tag teaming going on between Edwards and Obama against her, implying that she has a problem with likability.
“Well, that hurts my feelings, but I’ll try to go on.” – Hillary Clinton
After a moment or two, Obama responded,”You’re likeable enough.” He was looking down when he said it, with the camera catching the reaction, which revealed a quite ungracious moment for Obama.
Then, following Sen. Clinton’s emotional exchange with women voters during which she had tears in her eyes, John Edwards was critical and harsh. Worse, Barack Obama declined to say anything about the exchange.
Politico dissected the fascinating statistics about young women who sided with Hillary Clinton:
Obama easily beat Clinton among 18- to 24-year-olds in New Hampshire, 60 percent to 27 percent. But Clinton surprised observers by actually edging out Obama among 25- to 29-year-olds, 37 percent to 35 percent.
Her edge among voters between 25 and 29 was a crucial component of her 39 percent to 37 percent victory.
There are at least three potential explanations for the difference between the under-25 and the over-25 vote: that the nature of Clinton’s pitch to young voters had more appeal to voters in their late 20s; that 25 is about the age at which Clinton nostalgia may still kick in; and that Obama had a stronger organization on campus, while Clinton had a better field operation in the cities where young adults are most likely to live.
Then there are the statistics on independent voters, with Sen. Clinton carrying more independents than Sen. McCain:
The key stat:
Number of independent votes that McCain won: 33,063
Number of independent votes that Clinton won: 40,111
Today’s Wall Street Journal article, “Clinton’s Victory Resonates With Women,” tells us more about how women identify with Sen. Clinton:
Anne Skinner, a 58-year old waitress in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., felt a whiff of solidarity with Hillary Clinton yesterday.
“I was relieved,” she said of Mrs. Clinton’s unexpected primary win in New Hampshire. “I don’t think men understand how hard it is for women, how hard we work and how important we are. I think it’ll be good for us.” [...]
“Hillary has become, in a weird way, more of a hero to women for being down, counted out, standing up and fighting back,” said Susan Estrich, a political strategist and former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis. “Beforehand, people said she didn’t deserve the nomination because it was being handed to her. Now she’s like us because in the end nothing gets handed to women.
About that moment, Taylor Marsh eloquently writes in “Emotional Clinton on the Trail”:
[P]eople know when something is contrived. There is no doubt that she’s exhausted and the wall politicians usually erect completely falls in this exchange. She shared her honest feelings with the voters, revealing the Hillary people who’ve known her for years says is behind the politician we see every day. It’s a continuation of the “That hurts my feelings,” likability moment during the debate on Saturday, which was delivered so flawlessly. There’s a part of Hillary Clinton that has not been revealed to the public. It’s who she is and people need to meet that part of her. It was a very real moment. … (Read all.)
The last part of today’s WSJ article is a reminder of just how difficult it is to be a female candidate, elected official, or executive:
As a woman, Sen. [Claire] McCaskill said, “when you start in a hole, in how you’re perceived in terms of your competence, you can check too much of your personality and vulnerability at the door in a quest to look, talk and act like a CEO. When I ran for governor, I was so busy knowing the answers to all the questions that I forgot to tell them how important my mom was to me. It’s important that people see you as a multidimensional being and not as a cartoon character. I don’t think that’s the easiest thing in the world for Hillary. If you’re too buttoned up, people can’t relate to you.”
Pat Cook, president of Cook & Co. a boutique executive-recruiting firm in Bronxville, N.Y., said Mrs. Clinton has “been perceived as way too steely, too emotionless, but when she got a little teary she looked normal, like a real person with a soul who cares.”
That makes Mrs. Clinton a good role model for women seeking to advance in business or elsewhere, Ms. Cook said. “I tell them they’ll never be able to keep up a tough persona, and if they try they’ll just become an immediate target of men who want to brand women with the ‘B’ word as soon as they get any power,” she said.
Carol Bellamy, a former top New York City official and executive director of UNICEF, said Mrs. Clinton’s victory reminded her of the advice she gives younger women in politics and business: “You’re a human being. Be comfortable in your decision. Be comfortable in your skin.”
It’s quite a balancing act. And one that only another woman can know.
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