Hillary Clinton, Lessons on Defeat

With the feminist disillusion surrounding the defeat of Hillary Clinton comes the question: Did she lose because she was a woman?

During her speech in which she backed Obama and announced her pull-out, Clinton said: “When I was asked what it meant to be a female presidential candidate, I always replied the same, that I was proud to be to a female candidate, but that if I was in the race, it was because I thought I was the best choice for the presidency. But I am a woman, and like millions of women I know that there are still barriers and prejudices, often subconscious, and I want to build an America that respects and accepts the potential of each and every one of us.” This is why it is important to reflect upon her defeat and try to draw some lessons from it.

It has been endlessly repeated how historic it was to see a black man and a woman – two groups absent from the higher echelons of power – competing in a presidential race for the first time. However, neither Obama nor Clinton centered their campaigns around the issues of racial discrimination and gender, respectively.

The race was between two political personalities, not two societal groups. Women are not a homogeneous group and their loyalties do not stem from the fact that they are women. It is precisely because they are not a minority, but rather make up half the population, that they have social and ideological divisions.

Hillary counted on the support of some women and head-on opposition from other women. An example of the latter is Maureen Dowd from the New York Times, a woman which illustrates very well the rejection that the Clintons elicit from the democratic right. In one of her columns, Dowd mourned the fact that there was no “White Bitch Month” dedicated to Hillary Clinton.

Making policy at high levels entails actions and decisions which have nothing to do with being a man or woman. It is more important to have specific political projects, to have to good campaign team, knowing who your voters are and having luck to overcome unforeseen events.

Analysts all agree on the errors of the Clinton campaign: a disorganized team; lack of a clear self-trajectory; actions driven by external forces rather through plans, enabling Obama to snatch the initiative; not valuing the importance of the internet, and many more.

Then there’s the electoral system. Hillary failed to give the caucuses – whereby candidates are chosen on the basis of raised hands – their due importance. By winning the caucuses, Obama gained enough delegates to compensate for Hillary’s victories in the large northern state primaries.

The political profile of a candidate depends on his or her track record, but during an election campaign it is necessary to project an image. The fact of being a woman makes it more difficult because of lingering sexist stereotypes. NOW (National Organisation of Woman) has been documenting those reflected in the media. For example, no one doubts that a man – whatever the color of his skin – could be commander-in-chief, but Hillary Clinton, being a woman, had to prove it.

To offset stereotypes, Hillary’s team based her image on her experience, emphasizing her established profile. This left Obama as the herald of change, with great social demand and strength in the democratic grassroots, although both candidates share an impeccable track record on progress.

There was also a real problem regarding the attitudes towards the Iraq war. Both proposed a pull-out, but Hillary had voted in favor of the war in the Senate and she took it on honestly without making electoral concessions. Obama was meanwhile anti-war, although he was not yet Senator at the time. It’s difficult to know if he would have voted against it.

Finally there is family, always an important subject for women. La famila in feminine, the mother and the daughter. They were assets, like an implicit symbol of her feminist trajectory. In her pull-out speech she also showed them as three generations illustrating the reality of change in the political state of women.

Now as to Bill Clinton, there is disagreement on whether his contribution was positive or negative, although Hillary defended him in her final speech. But in reality, the underlying issue is that of family ties in politics (between spouses or fathers and sons). It leads to the problem of political dynasties and questions about how they tie up with democracy.

In democratic politics there is no ‘two for the price of one’, which Hillary had always peddled; there are no “political couples”. The politician’s career must be individual and separate from family ties.

There are already women presidents and prime ministers in many countries. But for a woman to have reached the presidency of the most powerful country in the world would have been a change of great political and symbolic transcendence.

In this sense, the disillusion is understandable. But there are many reasons to be proud of Hillary’s campaign, even if she lost. Regardless of what people thought of her, one has to acknowledge her many values. She had a difficult campaign, and it is remarkable that given the enormous pressure on her to throw the towel in, she fought until the very end. Most importantly, thanks to her great performance she has now made it possible so that, in the future, being a woman will not be an obstacle to reaching the presidency of the United States.

Judith Astelarra is a sociologist.