Anyone who reads this blog should know that I am not a political pundit, nor an expert on political science, nor even someone who has done any work on a political campaign (except for a little work on one congressional race in 2006). I don't claim to have any real understanding of political strategy as practiced by professional politicians and campaign advisors. Sometimes I am clueless as to why they make the decisions they make. I feel that way now about Hillary Clinton and her ridiculous determination to keep going in this campaign even though she doesn't have a prayer, in spite of the confetti and b.s. she threw all over a room in West Virginia last night.
What I bring to my writing is a knowledge of human behavior which I have gathered over my four years in graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in psychology, my 25 years practicing psychotherapy, and my nearly 30 years raising children.
So when I look at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, granted from a distance, I see interesting psychological realities, some of which I have written about before.
Mostly, I see Obama as an ambitious young man, determined to succeed and make a name for himself. I also see a caring and kind person, and a person who has benefited from his many life situations, including losing his father at a young age, living with a single mom and grandparents, living in other countries, being half black and half white and having to create his own identity. I see a man without a lot of baggage, with a healthy ego but not a narcissistic one, a man who both embodies and seeks to unite people of different perspectives. I see a true feminist, one who simply assumes equality between men and women and so doesn't have to continually talk about it. I also see a true post-racial man, one who doesn't have to bring up his race, or racial issues, at all because he knows there are ways to solve racial problems withough highlighting race. Finally, I see a man with an even temperament, one who doesn't get too excited or too upset, no matter what is thrown at him. He takes his time in responding to attacks, knowing that his actions matter. Since his actions as president will matter to millions of people, this is an excellent attribute.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, comes with a lot of baggage. She, too, is ambitious, and determined to follow her dreams. She has a guiding political ideology, from a life spent mostly in politics, and is desperate to implement it. However, her desperation also comes from her feelings of entitlement. Hillary sees the presidency as something she has earned, not in this campaign which was only supposed to be an exercise to go through and not a real fight, but eight years ago, when she was shamed on the national stage as a scorned woman. Hillary, I don't believe, has gotten over that. The American people, in her mind, owe her one, and she is not going to leave until she gets it, or someone throws her out. She is thus making something of a fool of herself in insisting she still has a shot.
Hillary is also using all the old grudges of feminism to fuel this campaign. Supporters who are her age or older, who went through the women's movement certain they deserved better than they were getting in life and in electoral politics, see her as the great white female hope. And she loves carrying that mantle. She will play on female resentments, just as she will play on racial resentments because she cannot believe that the Democratic Party, and the people who are Democratic voters, are willing to choose a young upstart over her. While Obama wants to move the country past the sixties divide based on gender, Hillary wants to revive it, building a base of loyal women who harbor resentment over the male ownership of the presidency. While Obama also wants to move the country past its long racial divide, Hillary wants to remind people in covert and overt ways that Obama is black, and does not understand "hard-working white" folks. And finally, Hillary's temperament is simply not presidential. She goes from tears to shouts to mocking insults and sarcasm. She has "found her voice" and her stride so many times in this election season that one wonders if she knows who she really is.
I have learned a great many things over the years as a psychotherapist and mother. I have learned that life is not fair, that bad things happen to good people and vice versa, that we can't have it all, and sometimes we can't even have very much, that everyone suffers disappointments and that people don't always get what they deserve. These are lessons Hillary Clinton seems not to have learned.
She refuses to believe life is not fair. She thinks she can make it fair (to her). All she has to do is change the rules until she finds a set that will let her win. She thinks she and Bill can have it all. Not only does he get to be president, but so does she. She thinks people should get what they deserve and she thinks she deserves the White House. Certainly a young black man like Barack Obama doesn't deserve the White House. Unlike her, he hasn't paid his dues. So she justifies any and all attacks (including dishonest and racial ones) on him as fair.
The media calls this determination and grit. She calls it being a "fighter." Her advisors call it smart strategy. I call it being an immature baby who is having a tantrum and won't accept the realities of life that other people learn to live by.
Grow up, Hillary! Move on and find happiness some other way, like dignified and psychologically healthy people do when they have to accept the reality that they can't have everything they want, no matter how badly they want it.
