The Press Versus HRC

Readers are probably aware that I'm not exactly heartbroken over the apparent tightening of the Democratic primary race in the polls, but I agree with Chris Bowers that the main causal mechanism here appears to be a fundamentally unfair media narrative. I watched an extended discussion on MSNBC yesterday of a host and two guests (all women) berating Clinton for "playing the gender card," lambasting it as both a substantive outrage and a tactical blunder that called into question her ability to combat terrorism effectively. The closest thing to a defense of Clinton's unforgivable conduct we got was the notion that maybe her staff had played this card without her permission, but that also cast her leadership abilities into doubt. Strangest of all, throughout the segment viewers were never told what Clinton had actually done so there was no opportunity for anyone to make up their own mind as to whether the MSM-lambasting was justified.

As Chris says, even if you like the result here (and I do) it still reflects a kind of sickness in our political culture that hasn't served the country well in the recent past and seems unlikely to do so in the future.

Comments

Ah, trusting procedure to lead us to perfection. That should work.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 7, 2007 3:17 PM

Funny you should mention that. I was watching a panel discussion on CNN the other day, and got the exact opposite impression - all of the guests were falling over themselves to explain how Clinton really didn't do that badly in last week's debate, how she isn't really playing the gender card, and so on.

It's interesting to observe how each news network appears to be developing its own "spin" on the '08 race - not exactly healthy for our democracy, but interesting nonetheless.

Posted by DaveWoo | November 7, 2007 3:23 PM

Ah, the ritual sacrifice of the frontrunner; 'tis a Democratic primary afterall.

Posted by southpaw | November 7, 2007 3:31 PM

I watched an extended discussion on MSNBC yesterday of a host and two guests (all women) berating Clinton for "playing the gender card,"

Unsaid, but implied: "playing the gender card against Democrats".

After all, when Hillary played the gender card against the likes of Rick Lazio, the press were whole-hog in favor.

Posted by Al | November 7, 2007 3:32 PM

That is also the same media which regularly portrayed any Democratic policy or politician which departed from pro-Bush caving as crazy, fringe, unpopular, suicidal, dangerous...

So, here we have a politician who was broadly and individually favored by the entire media policy which assaulted any rival who dared depart from that storyline, and now that same mythologizing media seems to no longer be in her favor.

If you think the media's being harsh on Hillary, imagine the bizarre levels of hatred which may yet be lavished on an actual progressive reform campaign such as Edwards, who no doubt would be portrayed as the new and even crazier incarnation of Hugo Chavez if not Fidel Castro himself.

Posted by El Cid | November 7, 2007 3:32 PM

Think this is much ado about nothing. Hillary stumbled and the horserace tightened a bit. That's their focus. So what?! No one accused her of being a loon a la Howard Dean and no one that I heard said anything wildly inaccurate. The narrative had been that she's been flawless, and now it's that her misstep(s) have encouraged her rivals. What's "sick" about that?

Posted by Trevor | November 7, 2007 3:34 PM

After all, when Hillary played the gender card against the likes of Rick Lazio, the press were whole-hog in favor

What the fuck is the gender card in the first place?

Posted by strannix | November 7, 2007 3:43 PM

"Strangest of all, throughout the segment viewers were never told what Clinton had actually done so there was no opportunity for anyone to make up their own mind as to whether the MSM-lambasting was justified."

You know, I keep reading on all my favorite blogs that Clinton is being accused of having played the gender card, and various discussions about how this is the latest MSM narrative (the bloggers are generally not actually saying that she did anything fitting the description), but I still have no idea what it was that actually started this whole thing. I'm not getting the relevant information from the MSM or the non-MS M.

Posted by Greg | November 7, 2007 3:44 PM

The one thing Hillary can't hide is the fact that she is a woman. When you are the only woman in a debate with a large number of men and they are all taking their potshots at you, it is difficult not to be noticed. Aside from that, astute observers might ask what is wrong with this picture and the answer is "Why is there only one woman in this line up?" One might reasonably assume that the answer is that powerful women are not welcome in the all male fraternity of presidential politics.

With todays 24 hour constant media hype masquerading as news it is necessary to manufacture flaws and controversy even if there is no reason for it. Reporting today is no longer about news, it is about ratings. This is doing a great disservice to the country.

Posted by Jim | November 7, 2007 3:45 PM

The press are dying to take down HRC, and they are dying for a clear R to emerge.

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | November 7, 2007 3:48 PM

Re: "What the fuck is the gender card in the first place?"

My guess is its one of the cards with a picture of a Queen on it. And, like other commenters, I have absolutely no idea what HRC did that constituted playing this card.

Posted by Jim W | November 7, 2007 3:49 PM

Is it really the case that the tightening of the race is causally attributable to some "stumble" or to various gender cards, played or unplayed?

Couldn't it instead be the case that the more substantive criticism related to Lieberman-Kyl has begun to take a toll? Perhaps those notorious "low information voters" are now starting to pay closer attention and are getting more information.

Also the Obama campaign recently rolled out a media campaign.

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 7, 2007 3:51 PM

Greg,

Hillary endured a sustained attack from all her Democratic rivals in the debate last week (and also gave some controversial answers, especially on a question about granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in New York state). In the aftermath of the debate, some have argued that her statements and the statements of her staff cast her as the victim of piling-on by her male counterparts and coupled this explanation for her allegedly poor performance with her gender. It was the response of Hillary and her staff to the perception that she had stumbled in that debate that prompted the Gender Card issue.

Posted by southpaw | November 7, 2007 3:51 PM

"After all, when Hillary played the gender card against the likes of Rick Lazio, the press were whole-hog in favor."

Lazio has a gender? Ba dum, dum, chee...

Seriously, I think Hillary should have waited till Lazio hit puberty before discussing a sensitive subject like gender...

Posted by Rihilism | November 7, 2007 3:53 PM

Re: "It was the response of Hillary and her staff to the perception that she had stumbled in that debate that prompted the Gender Card issue."

Does anyone have an actual quote? The quotes I read were so innocuous that I concluded it was just a made up issue.

Posted by Jim W | November 7, 2007 3:57 PM

As far as I can tell, this talk of Clinton "playing the gender card" involves her stating that studying at a women's college helped her navigate politics which she described as a "boys' club."

This is, pretty much, the stock endorsement of the value of women's colleges. The pundits have to be pretty disingenuous to claim that there must be some kind of "problem" with this.

Posted by Tyro | November 7, 2007 3:59 PM

Rick Lazio? Hillary carded him? Was he 21?

Seriously folks,

What started this, as I recall, was the totally inoffensive remark Hillary made at Wellesly, her alma mater, that the college was preparing its students to go out in the "boys club" of the world, or words to that effect. This got everybody hot and bothered, and later on some HRC staffers allowed that the boys had been ganging up on her and that it would boomerang on them.

That's pretty much it, and it's no wonder the TeeVee shows don't explain it, because it pretty much evaporates on sight.

Posted by David in NY | November 7, 2007 4:00 PM

And that she said this to students while on the campus of the very women's college at which she studied.

Posted by Tyro | November 7, 2007 4:01 PM

the main causal mechanism here appears to be a fundamentally unfair media narrative.

please, please, please keep posting about this stuff. i preferred obama and probably still do, although his willingness to play the fool about social security cut me to the quick. but it's media narratives-- not "liberal" or "conservative" media bias, but the brainless preferences of nantucket swells like tim russert or chris matthews, or of new york sociopaths like maureen dowd and gail collins-- that will ultimately give us president giuliani.

and a president giuliani is really more than i can bear to contemplate.

Posted by marc h. | November 7, 2007 4:02 PM

Wait a minute: where's the evidence of a tightening race? I was just on Real Clear Politics and only saw a one-point dip in HRC's average and small recent rise for Obama that began before the most recent debate.

I say this even as I want Obama to close the gap, I think at the moment the "tightening" is a more a figment of the Beltway's imagination.

Greg: I think the incident that some see as HRC playing the gender card was a speech she gave at Wellesley a couple days after the debate in Philly, where many other Dems ganged up on her. See GFR at Tapped for perhaps the best sum-up of this.

Posted by Philly | November 7, 2007 4:04 PM

What she said at Wellesly had nothing to do with it. Hillary played the gender card by being born with a vagina.

This reminds me of the "Is Obama black enough?" questions of a few months back, which happened around the time the media realized that Obama was black. In this case, its just occurred to them that Hillary is a woman. So, naturally, the question of the gender card came up.

Posted by Spike | November 7, 2007 4:10 PM

Oh wait, I see it's getting tighter in Iowa. Hmmm... I still doubt Iowa's going to be pivotal in 08, as the race has been going on for so long. Even if HRC gets beat, as long as it's not a drubbing it'll be easy for her to dismiss the caucus as the glorified straw-poll that it is and then go on to steamroll Obama and Edwards in NH and SC.

Posted by Philly | November 7, 2007 4:28 PM

You could argue that the gender card is played when any candidate mentions his or her gender and suggests that it endows them with some kind of advantage or disadvantage. For example, Hillary was annointed by her own campaign (read: herself) as "One Strong Woman" because she didn't burst into tears when male Senators decided to (gasp!) debate her during the debate last week. On the other hand, when exceeding or transcending archaic gender stereotypes is not favorable to her, she plays the other side of the gender card and acts like she's not at all the feminist from Wellesley, not at all the a liberal, not at all the dove. Granted, she is in a major bind because obviously she is not going to campaign without acknowledging that she would be the first female U.S. president in history, and surely she is hoping to be elected by some voters simply because she is a woman. But whenever she is implicit or explicit about being a female candidate it reeks of, yes, playing the "gender card" and it's not impressive or endearing——especially when it becomes linked to some kind of victimhood stance, whether it's the "politics of pile-on" or the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that sought to destroy her and her husband. People have a point when they whine that she wants to have it both ways. If she had more integrity she'd not make a big deal about her gender, ever, no matter what the circumstances. She'd take the high road and she'd tell her consultants to do so, too. The problem is, she doesn't trust her audience. If people watching the debate sense that the men are ganging up on the lone woman, fine. Then they may indeed sympathize with her and be repelled by her competitors. Hillary does not need to tell people to have that perception! And when she does, whether in a press release that night or a speech the next day, it's really annoying. (People would be similarly annoyed with Obama if he played the race card in such an opportunistic way. And people ARE similarly annoyed when the old white guys play the "old white guy" card.) What I want is a real goddamn person, not someone who is constantly calculating how they can morph into the candidate who has the most appeal to the demographic that happens to be in the room. Hillary simply can't help herself. She wants everyone but her enemies to like her, and she does not have the ability or the trust in Americans to simply let us know who she is (or was) and judge her on her merits. Blech.

Posted by tinisoli | November 7, 2007 4:29 PM

Matt, the thing you have to remember is that while Clinton's shrinking lead may be attributable to an unfair media narrative, so was her initially expanding lead to begin with -- the media articles about her inevitability, about her tightly efficient campaign, about Obama's "missteps," and so on. So this new trend (if indeed it is one) is no more or less unfair than what preceded it.

In fact, it's a pretty predictable cycle: The media, as well as most Americans, don't like anyone getting too high or mighty, so as soon as someone reaches a certain peak, they start looking to tear that person down -- even if they're responsible for putting that person there in the first place.

Posted by Fred App | November 7, 2007 4:30 PM

yeah, it was horribly unfair of Tim Russert to actually do his job and ask her a non-softball question during the last debate.

Pardon me while I snicker, and wish that Chris Matthews had tried something vaguely similar during the Republican debate. Sadly, his IQ doesn't go all the way to 2 syllable words.

Posted by James Robertson | November 7, 2007 4:35 PM

tinsoli, compare the questions russert asked frontrunner clinton with the questions he asked frontrunner bush at a fairly similar point in the 2000 election cycle. the idea that what happened to clinton is normal is ridiculous. a couple of quick links:

2007:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200711010001

2000:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june00/gop_debate_1-7.html

Posted by marc h. | November 7, 2007 4:42 PM

It has nothing to do with the speech and everything to do with Mark Penn and Co. coming out with "background" talks about how Clinton was picked on because she was a woman. The Clinton campaign tried to move their message it backfired and so saying ti was a dumb move is entirely correct.

Posted by Rob | November 7, 2007 5:11 PM

So, I gather that HRC played the gender card by ... being of a different gender? And having people in her campaign that occasionally allude to her different gender?

Wow. I guess I didn't realize how unacceptable her behavior has been on this score.

Posted by strannix | November 7, 2007 6:00 PM

In fact, it's a pretty predictable cycle: The media, as well as most Americans, don't like anyone getting too high or mighty, so as soon as someone reaches a certain peak, they start looking to tear that person down -- even if they're responsible for putting that person there in the first place.

Posted by Fred App | November 7, 2007 4:30 PM

=================================================

Also in this case it helps them keep the drama in the "horse race"

Posted by Campesino | November 7, 2007 6:04 PM

Nobody's even mentioned that Bill jumped into it

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071106/D8SOFOJ84.html

The week after Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused her rivals of "piling on," those foes showed no sign of easing up. They even went so far as to criticize the former president, a strategy that comes with risks in a party filled with voters who admire him for resurrecting the party in the 1990s.

On Monday, in defense of his wife against political critics, Bill Clinton cited the "swift boat" television ads of the 2004 presidential campaign that questioned John Kerry's patriotism and the campaign commercials in 2002 that suggested Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia was soft on terrorism.

=======================================

The morning after last week's debate, Sen. Clinton's campaign issued a video called "Pile On" that featured each of her male rivals calling her name the night before. Then, at Wellesley College, she joked about presidential politics being an "all-boys club," and campaign surrogates suggested that sexism was behind the criticism.

Only then did Clinton herself say it wasn't her gender but her lead in the Democratic race that had led to the intensified criticism.

Posted by Campesino | November 7, 2007 6:13 PM

Putting the gender thing aside, putting out the message that the other candidates were "piling on" is just a cheesy way to try to deflect the substance of their criticisms. It's of a piece with her campaign's schtick of feigning disappointment that Obama is "abandoning his message of hope" whenever he says something vaguely critical of her. It's all about avoiding rather than engaging in the issues, and Clinton deserves to take a hit for it.

Posted by Led | November 7, 2007 6:18 PM

Can't get the stink off
He's been hanging round for days
Comes like a comet
Suckered you but not your friends
One day he'll get to you
And teach you how to be a holy cow

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

Don't get my sympathy
Hanging out the 15th floor
You've changed the locks three times
He still comes reeling through the door
One day I'll get to you
And teach you how to get to purest hell

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

You do it to yourself, you do
and that's what really hurts is
You do it to yourself, just you
you and no-one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself, yourself, yourself.

Posted by bob | November 7, 2007 8:02 PM

What? The press wants a horse race?

Shocking!

Posted by john doe | November 7, 2007 8:03 PM

"Even if you like the result here (and I do) it still reflects a kind of sickness in our political culture . . . " This is simply your muddled way of saying the end justifies the means. How can you even like the result here? The Village imposes its narrative on the race, causing Hillary to suffer in the polls. What is good about that? It doesn't matter who the front-runner is, and it doesn't matter who your favored candidate is - unless liberals with megaphones (like, for example, people who blog at the Atlantic) call them out, the Village will play this same game again and again and we will have President Rudy.

Posted by bobbo | November 7, 2007 8:05 PM

Fred is right of course: Clinton benefited in the polls when the dominant media narrative was helpful, and the apparent shift in the dominant media narrative to a hurtful phase was entirely predictable. And none of it is "fair" if fairness rules out jamming events into a preconceived narrative.

But for now, at least, I actually think all of this does not really matter, regardless of what effect it has on the national polls. Rather, in a couple months a few people in Iowa are going to do something which at this point is entirely unpredictable, and then the real action will finally start.

Incidentally, Clinton's people probably knew all along this was coming, since it really was entirely predictable. I strongly suspect that what they were hoping was that the helpful phase would result in a tangible benefit in the form not of polls numbers, but rather a dominant position with respect to cash on hand. That probably did not work out exactly how they had hoped, but undoubtedly Clinton is still in a better cash position than she would have been if not for all the helpful coverage. So to that extent the helpful phase was indeed helpful, and in a bankable way (literally).

Posted by DTM | November 7, 2007 8:18 PM

Bill and Hillary’s long term shtick is to play victim, indignant and supremely entitled. Whereas Geoge the Small’s assumed entitlement is based on old fashion class and wealth (and unknowing stupidity in his case), Bill and Hillary’s is based on legitimate accomplishments and gifted intellect (particularly Bill’s).

The country is simply exhausted from this Bush administration, and the Clintons as well, and so there is a powerful collective visceral reaction to such overreaching and obnoxious behaviors.

Posted by Larry | November 7, 2007 9:30 PM

t has nothing to do with the speech and everything to do with Mark Penn and Co. coming out with "background" talks about how Clinton was picked on because she was a woman

This is the sort of stuff I want to hear about on weblogs. I want more leaks about "background" briefings-- name more names. This illuminates a lot more when it comes to finding out what the pundits are thinking and why they're doing what they're doing.

Posted by Tyro | November 7, 2007 10:32 PM

The bad news is that this structural unfairness is inevitable, because the media (as a corporate structure, and as individuals who live from it) has a vested interest in creating a contentious and close race even where none exists. The good news is that Clinton, uniquely among Democrats since, well, the other Clinton, understands this and is prepared to deal with it. So while I find these shenanigans repulsive, I don't fret about what they'll do to her candidacy because I am confident in her ability to parry them, in a way that I could never be confident with Gore and Kerry, and now Obama and Edwards. The bottom line is that I can more readily imagine the male candidates being reduced to Muskie-like tears by low campaigning than Clinton, who is more likely to make her opponents cry.

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