Yesterday, Barack Obama's supporters were surprised as Maria Shriver, Kennedy cousin and wife of California's Republican governor, came onto the stage with her cousin Caroline and Oprah Winfrey, and endorsed Obama.
Some noteworthy endorsements in the Democratic primary have come from America's unofficial royal family, the Kennedys.
Ted Kennedy and his niece Caroline, the daughter of his brother the late President John F. Kennedy, as well as Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, have all endorsed Obama. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has picked up the endorsement of three of Ethel's children, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., noted environmental activist.
Whether these endorsements balance each other out, whether some carry more weight than others, or whether they don't mean anything at all remains to be seen. While the Kennedy family can still make news, their glory has faded substantially from the high point of their popularity and power in the 1960s.
Of course, people my age still remember JFK and RFK, but people below the age of fifty have no real connection to them. Though I was only in grammar school at the time, I remember the day JFK was elected and the horrible days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which Kennedy successful navigated through.
I remember the glamour surrounding the Kennedy White House, the beauty of the new First Lady, who unbelievably was only in her thirties, and the use of the story of Camelot as a metaphor for the administration.
Later, when I was sitting in a High School classroom, I remember the intercom unexpectedly coming on with the words "The president of the United States is dead." I remember having the day off for the funeral, and sitting glued to the television set, with its black and white images of a little boy saluting as the horse drawn casket passed by, a beautiful woman, her face covered in a black veil, holding that little boy's hand and later, flanked by her brothers-in-law Robert and Edward, walking behind the funeral cortege.
I didn't know then what the assassination of that president might mean, as I didn't realize what the assassination of his brother, some five years later, would mean for the country or more specifically for the Democratic Party. As I look back now at those two tragic and violent events, I see how much they traumatized Democrats, and allowed the Republican Party to dominate American politics for several decades to come.
It was after the assassination of RFK, and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., that something drastically changed for Democrats, leaving them wandering in the wilderness without a leader. Imagine, if you will, what might have happened to the Republican Party had the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan succeeded, and been followed by the assassination of someone like John McCain, perhaps, and then Newt Gingrich or even Rush Limbaugh. The party would most definitely have been devastated and left in disarray for years. It's not that new leaders wouldn't emerge, it's that something inside Republicans would have been so traumatized, so overcome with sadness and loss that it would lose its power.
That's what happened in the seventies. All the things the Democrats stood for: civil rights, equality, opposition to war, progressive tax policies, and so on, lost steam after the sixties. Even the antiwar movement, which has been so artfully used against Democrats ever since, and as recently as in the last presidential election, lost steam in the early 1970s, as troops began to come home, Richard Nixon began "peace talks," and the nation turned to the next presidential election. Ultimately, that election led to the Watergate scandal, which should have helped the Democrats regain substantial power, but it didn't. The short and failed presidency of Jimmy Carter made things worse as it gave Reagan Republicans an opening to take power for the next 12 years.
Election after election, starting with 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Democrats nominated weak candidates: Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. In all those years, only one Democrat, Jimmy Carter, became president, and he was defeated in his bid for a second term. And in reality, Carter's victory was more likely a vote against Gerald Ford and his pardon of Nixon, than it was a vote for him.
Then along came Bill Clinton, who finally gave the Democrats two presidential victories in a row. He was charismatic and young, and his popularity gave Democrats hope that their recovery, and a return to government that would focus on needs of the people, had finally begun. Of course, Bill Clinton's behavior gave the Republicans a chance to weaken him and his potential successor, and so the Democratic comeback didn't last. Once again the nation has been inflicted with eight years of Republican domination while the anger, frustration and demoralization of Democrats continued.
This year is so different from previous years. The entry of so many Democratic candidates into the primaries, and the popularity of two non-traditional candidates, has energized Democrats as they haven't been energized since 1960. I don't understand why some of the younger Kennedys have endorsed Hillary Clinton, but I think I know why the Kennedys who endorsed Obama did so. I believe they see a return of the energy that characterized JFK's campaign and presidency, a presidency tragically cut short. Furthermore, they see something in this young dynamic figure that reminds them of their brother, father, uncle and brother-in-law who was once such a bright star in the party. Obama represents to them a new day for the Democratic Party, but unlike the new day that dawned with the election of JFK, a day that might last. Obama's candidacy is one of optimism, hope and energy that comes with turning a page and moving the country in a new direction, not just for a few years, but for a generation. His candidacy offers a chance to finally overcome and leave behind the trauma of the sixties that cut short the hope and energy of an entire generation of Democrats.
Although Hillary Clinton would undoubtedly move the country in a different direction as well, some of us ordinary voters, along with a few members of the Kennedy family, who lost so much along with us in the 1960s, believe a Clinton presidency would still have one foot in a past that brought shame and disappointment to Democrats and helped hand the government back to those who are intent on destroying it. And the divisiveness that characterized the Clinton years is not something we relish returning to. We don't want the kind of change represented by Bill Clinton, change that will disappear after four or eight years because of a leader's raw ambition and blatant pathology. This time, we want change that will last, change that goes beyond a family dynasty, whether that dynasty's name is Clinton or Kennedy.
To us, Obama represents that change.
Showing posts with label Ted Kennedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ted Kennedy. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Real feminists think for themselves
Throughout our lives, we form opinions on a multiplicity of issues. At first, it is typical for our views to reflect those of our parents. Over time, as we are exposed to other views, and reflect on our own life experiences, our views evolve.
For example, we hear our parents' political views throughout our childhood and adolescence, and agree with them until we go off to live on our own, and either hear other views or just begin to experience life differently. Sometimes we adopt new views permanently, or sometimes just try them on temporarily before returning to our parents' views. Other times we may reject both and develop our own unique perspective.
The important thing is that at some point in our adult lives we live according to what we truly believe, neither because our parents believe it, nor because we still feel the need to rebel against them by adopting a contrary belief.
My husband and I grew up in ultra conservative families. Up until our early twenties, we were, like our families, conservative in our political, religious and cultural views. We went to church each Sunday and accepted all the dogmas of our church. We were conservative Republicans and couldn't understand why anyone could be a Democrat. We didn't oppose the war in Vietnam, even as protests surrounded us on our college campus. We thought a woman's place was in the home, not in the office.
While our fellow students didn't really change us, having adult experiences and learning to think for ourselves did. The first break with my parents' political views came in 1968, after the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, when for the first time I really paid attention to the idealism and the fight against injustice represented by these two men. I turned 21 that year and it was the first time I could vote. Had RFK not been assassinated, I would have enthusiastically voted for him, much to my father's dismay. Instead I voted for Hubert Humphrey, only to see him lose to the first man to ever have to resign the presidency. I was still a registered Republican, not yet ready to sever my loyalty to my family, but eventually that changed too.
As we moved into the seventies and feminism arrived in full force, I was open to what people like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan had to say. Even as people in my family and church disparaged "women's libbers" as crazy people, I understood what Friedan was saying about "the problem that has no name." I had that problem. I had a college degree and was raising three children and I thought I would go out of my mind. Motherhood wasn't my strong suit and I felt my brain cells were dying with every diaper I changed.
Though I no longer call myself a feminist (mainly because I believe we are in a different phase now, a post-feminist phase in which we must go beyond agitation to collaboration) I have remained an advocate of women's rights and am always somewhat sad when I encounter women who criticize the women's movement and use derogatory and demeaning terms like "women's libbers." I always ask them if they don't believe women are equal to men or shouldn't have the same rights as men. I remind them that they would not have the opportunities they have and their fantastic paychecks if the women's movement had never happened.
Sure, there have always been aspects of the women's movement I have had a hard time with. While I don't believe abortion should be criminalized, for instance, I simply can't approve of the radical pro-choice stance some women's groups take. As a mother of four children, I think abortion is always a tragedy, and I don't like the way some political groups treat it as if it just another form of birth control. I know this makes me out of line with other feminists, but remember what I said about the importance of developing your own views.
In general, though, I believe the goals of feminism have been admirable ones, and ones that have brought freedom and opportunities to women. The work is not finished, of course, and won't be until discrimination ends and equal pay is given for equal work, but once in a while I am ashamed of what some feminists do and yesterday was one of those days.
Yesterday, I read the statement by Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York chapter of NOW, slamming Ted Kennedy for his endorsement of Barack Obama and accusing him of "the ultimate betrayal." As I read the statement, it became clear that she felt Ted Kennedy owed women an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and that anything short of that was unacceptable. She accused him of "abandonment," of "choosing the new guy over us." She sounded like a woman scorned, someone whose husband or lover just cheated on her. She also said that by supporting Obama, Kennedy was completely abandoning women's issues and that furthermore, he couldn't handle the idea of a woman president.
In other words, the only way Kennedy could have proven his dedication to women's issues was to have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Everything else he has done for women in all his years in the Senate simply doesn't count.
Whoa! This is the kind of woman that gives feminism a bad name. This woman is effectively saying: "We've waited long enough. We're tired of male presidents and now that we have found a strong woman, we demand that you support her. We don't care if she loses in the general election, or that she is riding her husband's coat tails, or that she supported the war, or that she is a terribly divisive figure, we demand that you support her or everything you have done up until now is a sham." (Boy will she be in for a surprise if and when Hillary Clinton becomes president and doesn't give in to all her demands.)
I thought feminism was about men and women being equal, not about demanding that a woman be given a free pass. I thought feminists would want a woman who got to the presidential nomination on her own merits, not because she is married to a former president, is at least partly running on his record, and sends him out in the campaign to be her hit man. I thought we had gotten past hating men, and blaming them for everything that has ever gone wrong in the lives of women.
There was a time for anger in the seventies. A lot of us were angry then because we were realizing that the unhappiness many of us felt was because we were stuck in the restrictive roles society set down for us. We woke up to the injustice and did something. We demanded entrance into colleges and occupations that banned us. We demanded better pay, and child care so we could go to work. We got elected to office. We educated our husbands and depending on their reactions, either divorced them or joined with them in moving our marriages to a different and more fulfilling place. And most of us got over our anger and started to like men again. We decided that it was better to work together and to appreciate our differences, not just insist we be treated exactly the same.
Sure, there are still some "sexist pigs," (as we used to call them) out there, but Ted Kennedy isn't one of them, and for Marcia Pappas to attack him when he made a decision that he is entitled to make, and that he sincerely believes is the best decision for women as well as men, not to mention the country, is just stupid.
Her letter wasn't the statement of a disappointed or frustrated woman who is passionately supporting her candidate. It was the cry of a deranged women, whose hatred of men simmers continually below the surface.
Feminism is not and should never be about hating men. Nor should it be about electing a female president regardless of who the female nominee is.
I have considered myself a supporter of woman's rights for many years, far more years than Marcia Pappas I suspect, but I am also a woman who thinks for herself, and doesn't live in a binary world of good and evil, black and white, and male and female. Ted Kennedy supports Barack Obama, as many of us do, precisely because Obama is a candidate who transcends such a binary world.
In my twenties, when I identified strongly with feminists and believed in the causes they fought for, I might have supported a candidate like Hillary Clinton just because she was a woman. As I was awakening to the discrimination against women, I went through my own phase of anger against the male establishment and thought we needed to do bold things and stand together. But times have changed and so have I. Now I believe our best hope is to have a fair contest between male and female candidates, with politicians and citizens, men and women, free to support whatever candidate best represents their views. I no longer believe a woman candidate deserves the support of all women and all liberal male politicians. To the contrary, I think that demeans the woman candidate.
I was glad to see the national organization distance itself from its New York chapter because I think the statement of Marcia Pappas disgraces us all.
She owes Ted Kennedy and all women an apology for her ridiculous outburst, which does nothing to help the cause of women.
Real feminists, male and female, make decisions based on more than gender.
For example, we hear our parents' political views throughout our childhood and adolescence, and agree with them until we go off to live on our own, and either hear other views or just begin to experience life differently. Sometimes we adopt new views permanently, or sometimes just try them on temporarily before returning to our parents' views. Other times we may reject both and develop our own unique perspective.
The important thing is that at some point in our adult lives we live according to what we truly believe, neither because our parents believe it, nor because we still feel the need to rebel against them by adopting a contrary belief.
My husband and I grew up in ultra conservative families. Up until our early twenties, we were, like our families, conservative in our political, religious and cultural views. We went to church each Sunday and accepted all the dogmas of our church. We were conservative Republicans and couldn't understand why anyone could be a Democrat. We didn't oppose the war in Vietnam, even as protests surrounded us on our college campus. We thought a woman's place was in the home, not in the office.
While our fellow students didn't really change us, having adult experiences and learning to think for ourselves did. The first break with my parents' political views came in 1968, after the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, when for the first time I really paid attention to the idealism and the fight against injustice represented by these two men. I turned 21 that year and it was the first time I could vote. Had RFK not been assassinated, I would have enthusiastically voted for him, much to my father's dismay. Instead I voted for Hubert Humphrey, only to see him lose to the first man to ever have to resign the presidency. I was still a registered Republican, not yet ready to sever my loyalty to my family, but eventually that changed too.
As we moved into the seventies and feminism arrived in full force, I was open to what people like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan had to say. Even as people in my family and church disparaged "women's libbers" as crazy people, I understood what Friedan was saying about "the problem that has no name." I had that problem. I had a college degree and was raising three children and I thought I would go out of my mind. Motherhood wasn't my strong suit and I felt my brain cells were dying with every diaper I changed.
Though I no longer call myself a feminist (mainly because I believe we are in a different phase now, a post-feminist phase in which we must go beyond agitation to collaboration) I have remained an advocate of women's rights and am always somewhat sad when I encounter women who criticize the women's movement and use derogatory and demeaning terms like "women's libbers." I always ask them if they don't believe women are equal to men or shouldn't have the same rights as men. I remind them that they would not have the opportunities they have and their fantastic paychecks if the women's movement had never happened.
Sure, there have always been aspects of the women's movement I have had a hard time with. While I don't believe abortion should be criminalized, for instance, I simply can't approve of the radical pro-choice stance some women's groups take. As a mother of four children, I think abortion is always a tragedy, and I don't like the way some political groups treat it as if it just another form of birth control. I know this makes me out of line with other feminists, but remember what I said about the importance of developing your own views.
In general, though, I believe the goals of feminism have been admirable ones, and ones that have brought freedom and opportunities to women. The work is not finished, of course, and won't be until discrimination ends and equal pay is given for equal work, but once in a while I am ashamed of what some feminists do and yesterday was one of those days.
Yesterday, I read the statement by Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York chapter of NOW, slamming Ted Kennedy for his endorsement of Barack Obama and accusing him of "the ultimate betrayal." As I read the statement, it became clear that she felt Ted Kennedy owed women an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, and that anything short of that was unacceptable. She accused him of "abandonment," of "choosing the new guy over us." She sounded like a woman scorned, someone whose husband or lover just cheated on her. She also said that by supporting Obama, Kennedy was completely abandoning women's issues and that furthermore, he couldn't handle the idea of a woman president.
In other words, the only way Kennedy could have proven his dedication to women's issues was to have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Everything else he has done for women in all his years in the Senate simply doesn't count.
Whoa! This is the kind of woman that gives feminism a bad name. This woman is effectively saying: "We've waited long enough. We're tired of male presidents and now that we have found a strong woman, we demand that you support her. We don't care if she loses in the general election, or that she is riding her husband's coat tails, or that she supported the war, or that she is a terribly divisive figure, we demand that you support her or everything you have done up until now is a sham." (Boy will she be in for a surprise if and when Hillary Clinton becomes president and doesn't give in to all her demands.)
I thought feminism was about men and women being equal, not about demanding that a woman be given a free pass. I thought feminists would want a woman who got to the presidential nomination on her own merits, not because she is married to a former president, is at least partly running on his record, and sends him out in the campaign to be her hit man. I thought we had gotten past hating men, and blaming them for everything that has ever gone wrong in the lives of women.
There was a time for anger in the seventies. A lot of us were angry then because we were realizing that the unhappiness many of us felt was because we were stuck in the restrictive roles society set down for us. We woke up to the injustice and did something. We demanded entrance into colleges and occupations that banned us. We demanded better pay, and child care so we could go to work. We got elected to office. We educated our husbands and depending on their reactions, either divorced them or joined with them in moving our marriages to a different and more fulfilling place. And most of us got over our anger and started to like men again. We decided that it was better to work together and to appreciate our differences, not just insist we be treated exactly the same.
Sure, there are still some "sexist pigs," (as we used to call them) out there, but Ted Kennedy isn't one of them, and for Marcia Pappas to attack him when he made a decision that he is entitled to make, and that he sincerely believes is the best decision for women as well as men, not to mention the country, is just stupid.
Her letter wasn't the statement of a disappointed or frustrated woman who is passionately supporting her candidate. It was the cry of a deranged women, whose hatred of men simmers continually below the surface.
Feminism is not and should never be about hating men. Nor should it be about electing a female president regardless of who the female nominee is.
I have considered myself a supporter of woman's rights for many years, far more years than Marcia Pappas I suspect, but I am also a woman who thinks for herself, and doesn't live in a binary world of good and evil, black and white, and male and female. Ted Kennedy supports Barack Obama, as many of us do, precisely because Obama is a candidate who transcends such a binary world.
In my twenties, when I identified strongly with feminists and believed in the causes they fought for, I might have supported a candidate like Hillary Clinton just because she was a woman. As I was awakening to the discrimination against women, I went through my own phase of anger against the male establishment and thought we needed to do bold things and stand together. But times have changed and so have I. Now I believe our best hope is to have a fair contest between male and female candidates, with politicians and citizens, men and women, free to support whatever candidate best represents their views. I no longer believe a woman candidate deserves the support of all women and all liberal male politicians. To the contrary, I think that demeans the woman candidate.
I was glad to see the national organization distance itself from its New York chapter because I think the statement of Marcia Pappas disgraces us all.
She owes Ted Kennedy and all women an apology for her ridiculous outburst, which does nothing to help the cause of women.
Real feminists, male and female, make decisions based on more than gender.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Superman
I don't know if anyone should pay any attention to polls anymore as they have been wrong in every primary and caucus to date.
But the polls are telling us that Hillary is still ahead in most super Tuesday states. Since the vote is a week from tomorrow, that doesn't give Mr. Obama much time to catch up and pass her. But as I said, the polls have been terribly wrong. With two candidates who are unlike any candidates the country has ever seen, the polls simply don't know how to measure the mood of the voters.
Hillary is the first serious woman candidate, and perhaps more importantly, the first First Lady to run. Voters have mixed feelings. Many who would love to finally see a woman president aren't sure they want the first one to be Hillary. Voters are feeling love and revulsion at the same time: love for who the Clintons once were, and revulsion at what they have become. Many who supported Hillary a week ago have switched their allegience to Obama.
Barack Obama is not only the first African American to have a real shot at the nomination, he is an African American who transcends race. Again, voters aren't sure what to think. Just when they agree with Hillary that he is too inexperienced, they hear him speak and hear not only evidence of experience, but evidence of maturity and wisdom. Barack Obama is not just a candidate, he is a phenomenon, a politician with the potential to be a statesman, a visionary and prophet all rolled into one, and many voters are deciding this is their chance to be on the right side of history, to participate in something that could return the country to greatness. They are increasingly seeing Hillary as the past, Barack as the future.
Ted Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy are right to see the potential greatness in him. He reminds them of the two fallen Kennedys who inspired another generation.
If the polls are right this time, and Obama loses to Hillary, then we all lose with him. We will have missed an opportunity to move in a new direction, towards a place we very much need to go. If Hillary wins the nomination, she may or may not beat the Republican nominee in November. Her negatives are so high, and her momentum so poor, that she is likely to ensure four more years of Republican insanity. If she is victorious and does become the next president, however, things could be just as bad.
On the other hand, a surprise Obama victory on Super Tuesday will not only energize Democrats, but also capture the entire country. Already he is causing Republicans to pay serious attention. An Obama come-from-behind win on Tuesday will show us just how powerful a figure he is. If he defeats the Clintons, when they have had an enormous lead, he will be a superhero, a giant killer who did the impossible, and whose momentum will carry him to the White House in November.
And that's just the beginning.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Restoring dignity to the Clinton campaign
It's about time!
Rahm Emmanuel and Ted Kennedy have advised Bill Clinton to stop the attacks on Obama, indicating this is not an appropriate role for a former president.
Rahm Emmanuel and Ted Kennedy have advised Bill Clinton to stop the attacks on Obama, indicating this is not an appropriate role for a former president.
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