Judith Warner's most recent NYT blog post, "Who's for Hillary. And Who Isn't," perfectly illustrates what is already wrong with press coverage of the '08 presidential election (and more specifically of the Democratic primary field, and most specifically of Hillary Clinton's candidacy).
First of all, Judy's ramblings in much of this post are pretty non-sensical. The basic premise with which she opens is that younger, less wealthy women tend to like Hillary more than their older, wealthier, and more highly educated counterparts. OK, simple. It is in her attempts to explain this polling data that she runs into problems:
"But I’ve repeatedly found that better-off women, who have decent health care, child care, education and, to a greater degree, job flexibility, tend to often be hostile to this sort of communitarian notion of shared responsibility ["It takes a village"]. (“Do you want the government raising your children?” is the frequent riposte.) They’re big believers in the American ethos of individual “choice” and “personal responsibility”; after all, being the winners in our society, it has worked out well for them. And they – rightly – perceive that they’re bound to be the losers, tax-wise, if their own gated community of family comfort is opened up to the larger village."
Alright, so none of this is, on its face, ludicrous. Many (if not a majority) of Americans believe in the "American ethos" (duh). But here's the problem: this is not the make-or-break on supporing Hillary - this sounds like a make-or-break on whether or not to support Democrats or progressive domestic policies in general. An affluent woman of a certain age with a master's degree who is very concerned about the growth of the tax burden on her income because of programs like HeadStart is not going to vote for Hillary. Or Obama. Or Edwards, god forbid. The women who are saying they trust Obama more than Hillary - find him more authentic - are probably not the people who find "the communitarian notion of shared responsibility" a turnoff, since Obama, and to a greater degree Edwards, displays stronger progressive rhetoric than Hillary, at least so far in the campaign. In other words, this is lazy reporting. Judy, you're not explaining anything except for why women who are already Republicans are not supporting Hillary. Thanks for the help.
The big problem Warner's post brings up has to do with coverage of the campaign. Her blog post is entirely typical of how things have gone so far - identifying something like a gap in support for Hillary between younger and older women, and then doing absolutely nothing to explain it. In other words, not asking any damn questions. It's not enough to say that people hate or simply don't wish to support Hillary because they are rich and feel alienated by "It Takes a Village." I'm desperately hoping that my fellow Democrats aren't stupid enough to hand her the nomination, and I certainly don't feel victimized by communitarian notions, generally speaking. So memo to Judy, the Washington Press Corps, and the rest of the lazy journalists of the world: stop equating anti-Hillary sentiment with anti-progressive sentiment. I respect her very much, but front-runner or not, that doesn't maker her the voice of the new Democrats, nor does it equate her with progressivism. She's the spokeswoman for ambition.
No comments:
Post a Comment