There was an odd minor foofaraw in Left Blogovia recently when Mark Schmitt suggested that we all refer to the junior senator from New York as Senator Clinton, "without exception". The response, generally, is that as long as her campaign refers to her as Hillary on posters and bumper stickers and whatnot, bloggers would feel free to refer to her by her first name without considering it demeaning. It's an interesting question, and terribly complicated. It's true that there are only a handful of Senators (and a few Congressmen, too) who are known by their first name outside their districts. I suspect Bernie Sanders will be one, in the long haul. Newt Gingrich certainly was, and I think if anybody referred to Teddy in the context of legislation, there wouldn't be much doubt. It's a sign of distinction, as well as being a sign of having an at least moderately unusual first name. Women in the Senate (and, sadly, the House as well, really) are more likely to have "unusual" names for Senators, simply because there are more Bobs than Barbaras.
I understand the position that using her first name is not demeaning, since it is (a) at her invitation, and (2) used with men of distinction as well. And yet, because the double standard exists, because (among other reasons) there really are more Bobs than Barbaras in the Senate, I think it does come off a little ... diminutive. Dismissive, almost. In part, that's because her political opponents so often referred to her by her first name alone, and did so in tones of contempt. It has been observed that she is deliberately attempting to defuse that by using her first name by itself so frequently. I understand that, too. That the attempt is deliberate does not necessarilly make it well-advised, though, nor does it mean the attempt is likely to succeed. She may want the name to be free of either sexist taint or partisan sneer and still fail.
The discussion that I've seen (and I've missed most of it, I'm sure, in part because my computer is like Generalissimo Francisco Franco) has missed the important difference between what is good for Hillary Clinton's campaign chances and what is good for the Party. I maintain that Senator Clinton has a very good opportunity to become a long-service influential and powerful Senator in the mold of the aforementioned Senator Kennedy or her own state's Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I know that we want to take back the White House, and that she wants to be President, but I think the best thing for our Party (and for our nation, because I think the success of our Party's policies would be good for our nation) would be for her to settle in to the seat she now holds. Now, I don't really think that the blogosphere has a tremendous amount of rhetorical power (at the present time, at any rate), but I do think that a respectful formality, a distant but warm tone, would be the right one to strike.
One thing that is very difficult for a Party (any Party, but particularly one laboring under our Constitution) is that its leaders have a natural tendency to degrade their rivals within it. We will have (and we should have) a vigorously contested nomination, with half-a-dozen or more candidates of very high quality putting forth their own policy slates, personae and priorities to see which will get to be the personification of the Democratic Party for at least a year. Part of that competition will be negative, will be the useful argument about why each of them is unfit for the highest office in the land. That gets ugly, and I certainly don't enjoy that part of it, but it is a necessary part of the process. Fine. But afterward, the candidates who don't become the nominee will (I hope) continue their careers of public service. I would hope that all the bloggers who agree with that view will attempt to treat all the candidates with a certain necessarily formal respect, to encourage (for instance) Senator Clinton to, when she loses the nomination fight, attempt to live up to that title.
And, of course, Your Humble Blogger simply likes to refer to people with their honorific wherever possible. I am naturally going to look for a philosophical framework to hold up my aesthetic preference. That's how it works. But I do think that there is a lot more to it that saying that we should call her Hillary because she calls herself Hillary on her web page.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
before i saw the blog posts on this i was thinking of it. i decided, to me, hillary (a fun name, btw) is the lawyer who tried, as the first woman of her generation to live in the white house, to be part of a working couple, something that had been an important aspect of american middle-and-up professional homes for years but not quite enough of them to establish the concept in the most watched of households.
senator clinton, on the other hand, is one of 100, a commandingly-elected representative of the oldest of our populous and powerful states — home of the city that is arguably the world’s measuring stick for getting s**t done — and who now serves both that state and the nation, as a scarlet letter on the republican revolution. “i was there, i saw this coming, it ruined my home life and what i thought was a good post-cold-war chance. now i’m watching the jerks self-immolate. ‘we can do it better’ doesn’t even get halfway there.”
masculinity was a huge issue in the 90s. it wasn’t just the first woman‘s presence. everything that had ever been posited by liberal thinkers was under attack. for instance, uh, right, though he became famous as the hillary-hater of the ages, limbaugh the woman-hater went national in 1988, beating up on dukakis the card-carrier.
the whole “movement” has been intensely sexualized. if there’s a stain on hillary clinton the candidate, it’s that the end of the cold war lined up with AIDS and gay lib, so that just as peace, prosperity, and dominance were around the corner, so were millions of queers and that prospect made many unhappy. this was going to be our era of victory! you ruined it! maybe.
real boys (send other boys to) fight in iraq.
i had this vision of a debate between HRC and some republican candidate.
HRC: … at which point, you have a few more choices, but that’s another subject.
host: thank you. governor redstate, your response.
GRS: i’m not a fag!
I think it’s also important to recognize that Senator Clinton (D-NY) did not choose to campaign as “Hillary” in a vacuum. She did so (to the extent that we can refer to campaign decisions as decisions made by the candidate) in the context of a society which is uncomfortable with powerful women. A common way to deal with that discomfort is to find a way of diminishing the woman, such as removing the honorific and using a first name instead of a last name.
That choice may be one that helps her or not in her campaign, which is taking place in today’s society. But our choices can also recognize that what we do today affects tomorrow’s society. As someone who currently is unconvinced that it is important to either support or oppose Senator Clinton’s campaign, I am free to ignore that consideration and focus on doing my bit to improve future gender equality by referring to Senator Clinton the same way I refer to other popularly known senators.
It’s funny, I had an analogous experience when I was diagnosed as schizoid bipolar a few years back. In order to come to terms with society’s stigma, I adopted the label “crazy” as a badge of honor. There are similar linguistic tricks being played by other disenfranchised groups, adopting colloquial slurs as empowering language within the group kind of thing.
Now, I think Michael (and, say, Bill Cosby) is right, that it is better in the long run NOT to self-identify with a derogatory label, and that the derogatory label will more likely stop being used by society at large, and that the stigma will gradually go away.
BUT in the short term, it can be a healing strategy to own the stigma, effectively saying “yeah, I’m crazy. Nothing wrong with being crazy. You got a problem with that, saney?”
So, I think Clinton the Eminent (which will be my personal designation for her – if you don’t like Her As Eminent, pick your own homophone and Spell It Your Way) – or her handlers – is choosing an effective strategy for diminishing the stigma in the short term, defusing the redstate strategy of stigmatizing-by-belittling. Inviting people to use her familiar name lets them into the circle and says “hey, we’re all Hillaries, here.”
I think that’s deliberate, creates intimacy, and recalls the “Fireside Chats” of Roosevelt. I think it’s a fine thing for a dem to adopt an effective strategy (or is it a tactic) of another dem. Also, my personal assessment is that it’s canny politics to adopt the strategy of that particular dem. If I were Clinton the Eminent’s handlers, I would suggest making the connection more overt. But that’s just me.
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A couple side notes:
Note the first: I am actually in an opposing camp to our fine host’s policy. I like to make up titles for people that have nothing to do with their actual titles, because I think titles (albeit usually earned) perpetuate a class system that I would just as soon be done with. Just because I’m not a Senator doesn’t mean I’m inferior to a Senator. For instance.
Comment two: Back toward the end of Clinton the Lesser’s second term, the pundits were going on about how he should use the budget surplus he left us in such a way as to solidify his legacy. My thought was that he should have commissioned the building of a giant gilded pyramid of stone, so constructed as to resonate to certain frequencies, and that this Cone of Sound should scream to the world, that all might know his might: “CLIN-TON!!!” on the hour.
Probably would have been a better use of that money than to squander it in Iraq. But that’s probably just sour grapes that they didn’t pick my idea.
peace
Matt
Good points all around.
What the initial topic made me think of, though there are all sorts of reasons that this isn’t as relevant as it initially seemed, was the “I Like Ike” campaign. You can see an animated ad/song at The Living Room Candidate (see “Eisenhower, 1952” in the right-hand sidebar) — and by the way, I think all candidates should have songs written for them. 🙂
The other thing that came to mind is that, iIrc, a bunch of reporters who traveled with GWB on the campaign trail talked about how friendly and easygoing he was, how he felt like just a guy, like a neighbor or a friend. I think a lot of politicians would like to be able to make people feel that way about them. I don’t know if Sen. Clinton can pull it off (and in our current society, I don’t know if any female politician could pull it off), but that might be part of the impetus, much like what Matt said about intimacy.
But yeah, none of that means it’s necessarily a good idea for Clinton to do this in her own campaign right now, given her personal history and the country’s political and cultural history and so on, as y’all have noted.
I’ll add–I don’t think that Senator Clinton can successfully turn the tables on her opponents and our culture, turning their dimunition into her intimacy. Or, at least, I don’t think she can do it enough to win the presidency. If the attempt fails, it’s probably worse for her Party (and her ideals) than if she doesn’t attempt it, and even if it succeeds, I’m inclined to think it’ll be bad in the long term. Those are my own judgements, and she is certainly entitled to come to different conclusions.
Oh, one more thing: Matt, I do like the gilded pyramid, but (as Michael Berube used to say), it’s not so much an either/or but a both/and thing. After all (as somebody, I think it was John Scalzi or perhaps Stephen Fry, observed), if we had the opportunity to go back in time and suggest that instead of giving the order to invade Iraq, Our Only President could simply eat a live kitten on television every night for three years, we might well take up the kitten-eating cause.
Thanks,
-V.
Every time Our Only President eats a kitten, Baby Osama bin Ladin weeps tears of blood.
Just saying.
peace
Matt
I wonder if that’s not a good thing. I’m not sure if I want Clinton the Eminent in the white house. Not that she’d be worse than our current First Resident, and in fact, she might be better than her husband was (although I’m personally of the opinion that Clinton the Lesser was one of the finer presidents of the 20th Century). But I don’t know that she’s the Best Choice Right Now, on a number of levels.
I’d personally be happy if she won the presidency. But I don’t think she (or Obama, for that matter) will, and I think that a nomination of either of them (although I’d vote for either of them) would mean a loss for the Democratic Party in ’08.
And I can’t imagine anything worse for America right now than a loss for the Democratic Party in ’08.
So there it is.
peace
Matt
Ok, one more from me, then I’m done. The point of my last post was Confused. Even contradictory.
What can I say, I’m a Discordian, and that’s all the clarification you get from me, so stop asking.
No, I mean it. Now knock it off.
Go to sleep, already! Jeez!
peace
Matt
i don’t really have a backup plan for the world falling apart around us, but if there’s to be a techie answer, well, that’d be good!
in the sectors that need to reduce their emissions, everybody seems to agree that what isn’t off and running in the next 10 years will be too late to be effective if there’s no miracle cure. as ppm approaches infinity we become mars or venus or something like that.
10 years = 2 yrs campaigns + 2 terms.
it’s possible the republicans will be inspired by their political geography to offer a candidate who is a climate skeptic. unlikely.
i’d like very much for congress to have a lot of hearings on this issue this year, and for the mayors and governors to come up with a very sophisticated plan that can be implemented at the federal level without effort.
i can’t figure out what a good president would be in this situation. someone who puts together a good cabinet and supports state level efforts effectively. someone who can bring mexican and canadian officials together to revise NAFTA to lighten the economic blows of turning down the diesel use, particularly for food hauling, on the continent. someone who, from the point of view of a trade official in another country, looks sincere in the attempt to make cuts.
but i fear the tight, lenient relationship between our gummint and our manufacturers will leave us with martial law instead of a plan. the maintenance of our nuclear arsenal says to me that it will be a coin toss whether we act or we wait for it to bring us advantage.
i’m not a single issue voter. i’ll work from the outside trying to shape the debate, rather than pick a candidate, trusting the democratic platform development process to shake a little of the recent rust out. but we’re talking about a serious rewiring of our infrastructure and assumptions about the world.
no presidential candidate could reasonably run on the platform, “i’ll take most of the defense budget and shift it to environmental adaptation and mitigation. here are the sectors where will focus the most attention.” the trouble is, how long would it take to get to that, if nobody was elected on with that in mind? how solid a majority, of whom, would need to be in congress to do that?
all this pressure on being reasonable and bipartisan. right now we have one set of big industries against another. how long will that last? can we elect a president who will tell our own oil industry to go to hell? will that president get shot, or something? the oil people have done some dirty deeds. some of the dirtiest.
pick a horse. any horse. every hand a winna.
Yeah, what hibiscus said.
Is it weird to think that the best salvation of the Democratic Party, and thus the world, might be Al Gore?
peace
Matt