An Open Letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton
"Official headshot" from the Clinton campaign Web site
Dear Senator Clinton:
It was with great pride that I pulled the lever labeled with your name on that cold, gray New York day in 2000. I was delighted that you had taken the political plunge for yourself - and, more, that you had chosen to do it in my own state. I had cheered as you faced down bullying frat boy Rick Lazio at the debate, and although I lamented the squishy name of your "listening tour," I applauded your diligence, tenacity, and commitment to those of us who would be your future constituents.
You and I have never met; the closest we’ve come is passing each other on the concourse at National Airport some years ago, you with your phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents, and me accompanied by my solitary laptop bag. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should note that I did once e-mail you: It was 1998, and you had just done a second day on the morning talk shows defending your husband and citing the "vast right-wing conspiracy" - which did, of course, exist. I was so impressed with your composure and dignity that I felt compelled to dash off a quick note of support . . . and was pleasantly surprised, five months later, to find an envelope in my mailbox with your office as the return address, containing a personal letter of thanks from you.
That letter told me more than I realized at the time.
Back in 1998, I was fed up with Dole and Gingrich and the other Beltway obstructionist hypocrites, and with Limbaugh and the whole sorry lot of slanderous shock-jock ranters. I was fed up with a political and media establishment that focused obsessively on a stain on a blue Gap dress and the titillating prospect of oral sex in the Oval Office, to the exclusion of the enormous policy challenges the country faced. And I was fed up with the blatant hypocrisy that demanded the blood of impeachment for a blowjob - a blowjob! - while looking the other way as those family values arbiters, the Gingriches and Hydes and Livingstons of the world, engaged in their own extracurricular sexual activities. Worse, they demanded a Clinton crucifixion for what was, at most, a private and venal sin while having allowed truly criminal (indeed, treasonous) activity to flourish unchecked during the Reagan and Bush I administrations.
And nothing delighted me more than the fantasy that, one day, I would be able to pull the lever for you in a presidential race. The sweetest revenge would be to rub the Beltway hypocrites’ collective nose in the mere fact of your presidency.
What a grave disappointment.
I remember being a bit taken aback by the conternt of your letter - less for what it said than for how it was written. It was a mishmash of disjointed sentences strung together into one clunky paragraph, closing with thanks for my support. Nothing especially wrong with it, except that it seemed so badly written, especially for something going out over the signature of Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady, lawyer, and policy wonk extraordinaire. In discussing it with friends, I attributed it to two things: 1) the fact that it was undoubtedly drafted by a low-level aide, and simply signed by you; and, more signifcantly, 2) the fact that, after years of persecution at the hands of your and your husband’s political enemies, you felt such a need to say nothing that could be used against you in any way that the net result was simply disjointed pablum. Fine; I could certainly understand the feelings underlying such an approach. It saddened me to see such a lowering of our public discourse, even in a simple thank-you note, but I had no illusions about the pernicious effects of the anti-Clinton zealots.
Little did I know that that carefulness, that avoidance of substance, would come to be a cornerstone of your future presidential campaign.
During your Senate tenure, I understood when you kept your head down on issues that previously had been of apparently great importance to you. I understood when you made a public show of your outreach to members of the other party. I understood when you invoked your faith repeatedly in the public sphere. And I understood when you took policy stances that were - how shall I put this? Hawkishly conservative, to say the least.
I reserved judgment when you cast votes that seemed to betray not only your constituents, but your own political identity. I reserved judgment when you partnered with Republicans on such non-issues as flag-burning, sex and violence in popular music and films, and other red meat for conservatives. I reserved judgment when you declined to support gay marriage. I even reserved judgment when you voted in favor of the Orwellian U.S.A. Patriot Act and the AUMF in Iraq. Not, you understand, because I supported any of these stances; I did not. But because, given the existing political climate, and given the cowardly approach of virtually every member of Congress save Russ Feingold (and, in isolated instances, a few others), I felt that you deserved as great a benefit of the doubt as every one of them.
And, I suppose, because I wanted to believe that you would have the courage of your convictions - or at least what we had been given to believe were your convictions.
Sadly, that day is long past.
It is true that, if you should become the Democratic nominee, I will vote for you over whomever the Republican Party ultimately chooses. That party has become nothing short of a criminal enterprise, and one that enshrines as a virtue the worst kind of bigotry and hypocrisy. But as a feminist, it saddens me greatly that I find myself unable wholeheartedly and enthusiastically to support the campaign of the first viable woman presidential candidate during the primary phase of the election.
Your thank-you letter of 1998 was telling: the carefully chosen words; the sacrifice of clarity and sense for vague and unrelated platitudes; the insistence on saying not only nothing of substance, but nothing, period. These have been the sum and substance of your campaign . . . and precious little substance it is.
I’ve watched in dismay as, for months now, you’ve refused to own your mistaken votes on the AUMF and Patriot Act. I don’t expect an overt apology, but I do expect you not to take us for ninnies. I expect you to be woman enough to admit that it was a mistake - and one that you will not make again.
I’ve watched in dismay as your surrogates have attempted to smear Senator Obama, your chief opponent. I know that you have said publicly that such comments were not authorized, but of a candidate in your position, much more is required than such weak denials.
And I’ve watched in dismay as you and your campaign have made weak and cheap allusions to race. Admittedly, the media have blown such statements out of all proportion, but you and your advisors surely must know that, where your candidacy above all others is concerned, they can reliably be expected to do that and much worse. From a strategic standpoint, it is ludicrous to give them an opening; from an ethical standpoint, such comments are beneath you in the first place.
But would you like to know what pushed me over the edge, from not enthusiastically supporting your candidacy to not supporting it at all?
It was your behavior on Saturday night in the aftermath of the South Carolina vote.
What in the world made you think that flying out of South Carolina in advance of the returns was a position of strength? What in the world made you think that running off to Tennessee as the returns came in was a position of strength? What in the world made you think that failing to thank your South Carolina supporters - in person, when it counted - was a position of strength? What in the world made you think that a tossed-off helf-sentence reference to Senator Obama’s outstanding win was a position of strength?
You know what would really have been a position of strength? Being woman enough - and gracious enough - to have waited it out with your South Carolina supporters, to have thanked them for their hard work and dedication on your behalf, to have acknowledged Senator Obama’s striking victory in a state where the very fact of outstanding African American turnout is something to be celebrated. Escaping to Tennessee - and that’s exactly what it was - fooled no one. Worse, it turned those voters at your Tennessee event, including the African American voters on whom every camera was trained relentlessly, into nothing more than a foil for spinning away not only your loss in South Carolina, but Senator Obama’s victory.
Don’t get me wrong: I hold no particular brief for Senator Obama’s campaign performance, either, although largely for different reasons. But your attempt to escape Sunday night’s South Carolina outcome by fleeing to Tennesee was the craven act of a political coward, not the mark of a worthy presidential candidate.
And, yes, I know what happened. I know that your inner circle - The Five, as they are known, and not respectfully, either - persuaded you that you needed to "move beyond" South Carolina. Well, Senator Clinton, we voters have other ideas. We believe that taking responsibility for one’s own campaign, and one’s own performance therein, are necessary prerequisites to any "moving on." And quaint though it may seem in 2008, we also believe that graciousness and being a good sport are prerequisites to gaining our support for the Oval Office, particularly after two terms of disastrously childish ungraciousness and poor sportsmanship, played out on the world stage.
Senator Clinton, it’s time to clean house. Your "advisors" are advising your campaign into the ground. Get rid of Mark Penn - that union-busting anti-liberal spin doctor of silly Beltway bagatelles must be the first to go. Get rid of Howard Wolfson. Get rid of Patti Solis Doyle. Surround yourself with real advisors - ones who may not always tell you what they think you want to hear, but who can be relied upon always to tell you exactly what you need to hear. Listen to you own instincts, those that made you, once upon a time, such a fierce advocate for the disenfranchised and disadvantaged; you’ve suppressed them for far too long now.
Begin campaigning like the woman that many of us long believed you to be: a woman of courage, of commitment, of honesty, of true inner strength. Then - and only then - will you deserve our support.
Sincerely,
Lilith Devlin
[Ed. note: Links to be added later. Up next: Open letters to Barack Obama and John Edwards.]
