According to a new book Dick Morris wrote with Eileen McGann, the only way Hillary Clinton will be defeated in the 2008 presidential race is if the Republicans nominate Condoleezza Rice. (Morris acknowledges that Rudy Giuliani could win a general election, but says that the Republicans will never nominate him). In an interview about the book on National Review Online, Morris says:
(Condi) would take away a third to a half of the black vote and would stop Hillary from gaining among white women. White men are a given. They will vote against Hillary by 2-1 as they voted against Gore and against Kerry. But blacks and white women are the moving pieces of this electoral puzzle.
I have to take anything Morris says with a grain of salt, especially since he’s made a career of fueling conservative paranoia about the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The Condi Rice angle will help to sell books, I’m sure.
I admire Rice and would give her a fair hearing should she run for president, but I would be surprised if she did run. She strikes me as more of a scholar than a politician. It would seem more likely that after her stint as Secretary of State she would go back to academia, join a think tank and/or write books. But let’s say she does run. She has no campaign experience and her views on many issues are unknown. Her candidacy could turn into a Wesley Clark type situation. There was a brief period when the idea of nominating a an anti-war former general to take on Bush excited many Democrats. But his appeal quickly fizzled after a short time on the campaign trail. Don’t get me wrong, Rice may well turn out to be a stellar candidate and she is certainly one person who I would never want to count out. I’m just not ready to say that she would definitely win the presidency because of the demographic benefits of being a black female conservative candidate.
Hillary v. Condi…very interesting. Personally, I don’t think either one will be the first female president, although if either of them were, I hope the American people would have the sense to choose Condi. I’ve gotten over some of my surprise regarding the Left’s lionization of Hillary–a woman who achieved much of her stature professionally as a result of being someone’s wife. Personally, I don’t have a problem with anyone, man or woman, using what he or she has in terms of brains, looks, and connections to succeed–but there are limits, at least for people of self-respect and integrity. It has always seemed to me a real irony that Left-wingers have chosen as the Ultimate Feminist Icon a woman who not only did not get where she is on her own steam, but who allowed herself to be degraded by her husband throughout decades of his philandering. How is this woman a model for other women to aspire to? She’s brainy, opportunistic, and driven, to be sure–but are these the only virtues that exist in the feminist lexicon? If so, how sad. It would seem, in such a case, that we women are still so marginalized as thinkers and actors in the great issues of our day that we must tailgate into the arenas of politics and ideas on men’s coattails. What sort of feminism is this?
I suppose a charitable-toward-Hillary, but cynical-toward-the-world, view would be that at this juncture in the history of our country/world, in order to achieve great success, a woman must possess blind ambition at the expense of a balanced life, including self-respect and healthy relationships.
Condi, however, provides something of a counterpoint. Although quite honestly, she never struck me as a highly independent thinker/leader (perhaps she only appears somewhat passive because of her role as advisor), she is obviously a woman who has risen to the zenith of the professional world due to her native talents, industriousness, and prodigious intellect. She possesses great self-respect and dignity in the face of grotesque personal attacks masked as “criticism” from pundits who cannot bear to see a prominent and strong African-American, because such a person threatens the culture of victimhood which the Democratic party and some black “leaders” feed on.
To return to Philip’s entry–Dick Morris’s projection that Hillary will win unless Condi does–I would submit that neither Hillary nor Condi will be the first female president. It probably won’t be Condi, because I’m guessing that she is indeed more of an advisor/intellectual than someone with the fire-in-the-belly to become President. Also, (and unfortunately) the fact that she is black might make it tougher, because she would face the double obstacles of people’s fears, conscious and unconscious, about seeing a woman and an African-American as leader of the free world.
But I definietly don’t think it will be Hillary, because deep down the American people have enough integrity to know that this is a quality she lacks, at least to some extent. That will disqualify her, because again, she will be facing people’s conscious and unconscious resistance to seeing a woman lead the free world, and will be held to an even higher standard than most candidates.
The first Female-American President will be great–great not only in terms of ambition (like Hillary) and in terms of intellect and character (like Condi), but in terms of all of these qualities, because she will have so much to overcome. Think Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, and Golda Meir rolled into one. Think of a thinker and a leader of the first order–a Washington or a Lincoln. Whoever she is, let’s hope she arrives soon, because we need her!!!
I think McCain or Giuliani would defeat Clinton because they would appeal to moderates. But if Republicans end up nominating an uninspiring candidate simply because he or she satisfies the checklist of what a Republican should be, I think Clinton would win.