Fascinating Article About Hillary Clinton & Feminists on AlterNet

AlterNet has a fascinating article up about why some feminists who once supported Hillary Clinton as First Lady are bitterly against her as a Democratic Presidential Candidate. This is a quote from the article:

"I love [Hillary Clinton] so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her!" exclaimed Nora Ephron in a 1993 Newsday interview. Three years later, she told the Wellesley class of 1996, "Understand: Every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you." Come late 2006, however, Ephron was the one on the attack as one of the self-described "Hillary resisters" -- those who believe that "she will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe," as she wrote on her Huffington Post blog, "who believe she has taken the concept of triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't trust her as far as you can spit."

This rather dramatic change of heart encapsulates one of the great ironies of Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. Many of the very same feminists who were her most ardent supporters as First Lady are now fiercely opposed to her historic bid to become the first female President of the United States. The woman once described by Susan Faludi as a symbol of "the joy of female independence" now evokes ambivalence, disdain and, sometimes, outright vitriol. The right wing's favorite "femi-nazi" now has to contend with Jane Fonda comparing her to "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."

The article goes on to examine why some feminists are so down on the first woman to really be considered seriously for the nomination for United States President by a major party. Hillary Clinton is the first woman, as far as we can remember, who is leading in public opinions polls for the Democratic nomination less than 18 months from a presidential election. Note also that the concern doesn't seem to be over her electability, which is a concern a lot of Democrats have, but over her political positions.

It is really ironic that, as the article notes, on the one hand she is being called a "femi-nazi" by Rush Limbaugh and on the other hand she is being called a "sell-out" by people like Nora Ephron. The article also points out that this disdain for Clinton is mostly shared by more liberal women. This is a quote from the article:

So what's up with the Hillary-bashing? "Women don't trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her," wrote Susan Douglas in a May In These Times article titled "Why Women Hate Hillary." A month later, in her Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen declared, "The truth is that Senator Clinton has a woman problem."

Not exactly true, as it turns out. Hillary Clinton was the number-one choice of 42 percent of likely Democratic primary women voters in a recent Zogby survey, compared with 19 percent for Barack Obama and 15 percent for John Edwards. And her favorable rating among independent women is a whopping twenty-one points higher than among independent men.

Let's be clear: Hillary has a "feminist problem," and more so with those who lean left.

This problem, by the way, is not unique with Hillary Clinton. One of the enduring problems for most Democratic candidates since the internal party split over the Vietnam in 1968 has been the fact that often liberal activists seem to prefer candidates who are right on issues as opposed to those who can actually win elections. This split led to the bitter divide of 1968 and the primary challenge to Carter from Kennedy in 1980. Interestingly enough it didn't lead to a primary challenge for her husband from the left in 1996, even though some liberal activists were disenchanted with Clinton over welfare reform in 1996.

All candidates are like houses when you are purchasing a residence: All of them have some attractive qualities and all of them have some qualities that you don't like. In the end you make a decision over which candidate has the most attractive qualities compared to the qualities you don't like. There is no such thing as the perfect candidate and every candidate has some problems when exposed to intense media scrutiny.