Clinton's Campaign Embraces Gender
By The Politico's Ben Smith.
Roberta Stokes said she cried Monday morning when she heard Hillary Clinton ask whether America is ready for a woman to be president. "That was emotional to me," said Stokes, 69, a retired teacher. "A lot of people don't understand that a woman is strong enough to do that." But Stokes said she'd also been moved when Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., came to Columbia last week, carrying the promise that he could become the first black president. "I couldn't make a choice right now on them," she said.
Clinton spent Monday morning before a mostly black, mostly female crowd in the South Carolina capital, and she seemed to grasp Stokes' choice clearly. Her pitch was equally clear: One pioneer at a time.
"I believe this presidential election is about breaking barriers," Clinton said. "This is the campaign and I am the candidate with the experience to break those barriers."
Clinton's tailored case to a black audience reflected her new directness in talking about herself as a woman and a mother. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reportedly took voice lessons to sound more like a man; Clinton has gone in the other direction since announcing her bid for the presidency, speaking more explicitly about her sex than ever before in her political career. And while the shift has the lofty aim of trying to change national attitudes toward women, it also reflects a cold, strategic reality.
"I like numbers. I like politics because it is about the bottom line," said Ann Lewis, a former White House communications director who has long been, among other roles, Clinton's liaison to women's groups. "Fifty-four percent of the electorate in November 2004 was women."
Clinton is the only woman among the 10 or so Democrats seeking the presidency, and despite a persistent storyline of discomfort among many women about her candidacy, she has a history of drawing women's support. In New York last year, she won re-election to the Senate with 73 percent of women voting for her and 61 percent of men, according to exit polls. The first major national group to endorse her presidential campaign was the powerhouse EMILY's List, which backs female candidates. And Clinton, alone among candidates for the presidency in a world of mostly male political junkies, draws mostly female crowds.
The new emphasis on gender by a candidate who once famously disparaged baking cookies and having teas — enraging many women who enjoyed both those activities — takes many forms, explicit and implicit. Clinton's new stump speech raises, before she can be asked, the question of whether Americans will elect a female president, and she speaks at times specifically as a woman and as a mother.
Clinton describes her campaign in what is a traditionally feminine vocabulary: She launched her bid for the White House in a video expressing her desire to "chat" with the electorate. She pledges to be a president who will "listen." Her campaign events are described as "conversations."
In a telephone interview last week, Lewis resisted the notion that the campaign is speaking primarily to women, and suggested that it differs from other campaigns merely in speaking as directly to women as to men. "What is unusual is that this is a campaign in which women are not sort of an afterthought," Lewis said. "The traditional Democratic campaign would go along saying, 'Of course we're talking to everybody,' and then would look at their numbers around Labor Day and say, 'We've got to do a better job talking to women.' "
Clinton's explicit embrace of her gender was a choice, and it represents a gamble of sorts. Though most polling shows a gender gap between parties and candidates, other factors — such as race and income — are typically stronger determinants of voters' preference. And according to a Siena College poll released Monday, 12 percent of Americans still say they wouldn't vote for a woman for president. Other polling has suggested that Americans are more comfortable with female legislators than executives. But it's a gamble that appears, so far, to be paying off. In particular, Clinton appears to have managed to avoid a mass defection of African-American supporters to Obama.
In interviews with black women of her own, baby boomer generation, it appeared clear that for voters affected by the notion of electing a pioneer, Clinton is able to compete with Obama. "We need a woman," said Joy Silver, 60, an African-American nurse attending the Columbia event. "I think she's going to make it."
Clinton drew roars from the Columbia crowd when she told them, "I am proud to be a woman." But while Clinton connects with women, she faces a challenge of not alienating another, only slightly less important demographic group that has, perhaps, grown accustomed to being the center of candidates' attention: men.
"It's not a zero-sum game," insisted Lewis. "This is not about throwing men over the side."
By Ben Smith
TM & © 2007 The Politico & Politico.com, a division of Allbritton Communications Company