I should be emotionally invested in Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by now. I admire her—have for years. She has demonstrated many of the characteristics I strive for—loyalty to her husband and a progressive agenda; devotion to her daughter and parents; excellent performance in her profession all while maintaining quite a bit of dignity. I want a woman to be President while I’m still young enough to work for them. I loved President Clinton. Yes, I should be a strong Hillary supporter. But I’m not. I’ve had to sit around the house for the past week recuperating from surgery and I’ve spent some time thinking about it. Why aren’t I drinking the Hillary Kool-Aid?
Let me immediately reassure anyone who cares that I will whole-heartedly support Hillary or any of our announced candidates who end up with the nomination. I believe that party is more important than personality where federal offices are concerned. The Democrats have an embarrassment of riches and I wish they could all be elected. Each of them will listen to the right people (not neocons!), be influenced by organized labor and progressive groups. Any one of them will be fine.
When looking at candidates in a primary, there are a number of things that we always look at. There are a list of issues—some stay the same (reproductive freedom)—others vary from decade to decade (war in Iraq or gay marriage). Obviously, I expect a candidate to agree with me on most if not all of the issues on my list when I’m thinking about a primary. But that is certainly not the whole story.
Most of us try to evaluate intangible qualities, as well. Voters, pollsters and pundits have a hard time describing this subjective examination—with George Bush they resorted to describing him as the person voters wanted to have a beer with. Some talked about ‘who you’d leave your children with’. It’s a fuzzy evaluation at best.
But it’s an important evaluation because the most important things a president is likely to do will involve emerging problems or situations. And we can’t ask about them before the election because we don’t know what they are and we lack the imagination to predict them. The 9/11 attacks are an obvious example but so is Katrina. And most presidents will have some crisis in their tenure. At a gut level we know this and we’re trying to predict how well they’ll do. We’re trying to predict if they’ll do what we’d do.
This is the level at which I’m uncomfortable about Hillary. I don’t have an instinct that she’s wrong. I don’t know anything about her as a person. I know her biography. She’s been center stage for 14 years. But I don’t know if she’s funny or mean. Does she occasionally drink wine or does she get shit-faced drunk with her girl-friends? Or is she a tea-totaler? Does she have girl-friends? Is she someone who comforts other people when they have trouble? Is she a problem-solver for her friends? Does she read novels for entertainment and escape? Which ones? Does she eat too much chocolate? I know far more about Elizabeth Edwards, Teresa Heinz....other women who just wanted to be first lady than I do about Hilary.
When Hillary is ready to reveal something of herself I’ll be paying close attention. I want to be for her. But first I want to know who she is.