A diary on the rec list today made me think a bit about what I’ve encountered over the last few days in terms of claims of Clinton’s tireless advocacy beyond the “single issue” of income inequality. In her closing remarks during the debate, Clinton portrayed herself as a well-rounded advocate for other constituencies beyond the question of Wall Street and wealth polarization:
Hillary Clinton on Thursday night sought to contrast herself with Bernie Sanders by framing him as a single-issue candidate who cannot deal with the broad set of American challenges.
"We agree that we've got to get accountable money out of politics; we agree that Wall Street should never be allowed to wreck Main Street again," Clinton said in her closing statement at the Democratic presidential debate hosted by PBS in Wisconsin.
"But here's the point I want to make tonight: I am not a single-issue candidate and I do not believe we live in a single-issue country."
Sanders had spent much of the night pivoting back to his preferred issues of income inequality and the campaign finance system, but Clinton said she wants to overcome all "the barriers that are holding people back."
Here’s the thing about all that.
If you want to make the case that Clinton can walk and chew gum at the same time, that she will be a tireless champion of all the many constituencies she spoke to last night, it’s worth meditating on what her advocacy has been for one of the groups she cited: the LGBT community.
I just got finished watching this compelling clip from the Rachel Maddow show, where she contextualizes an interview with Bernie Sanders on LGBT rights by pointing out the highly risky, unpopular, and bold stance that he took on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. As Maddow points out, while it’s true that both Clintons have since “evolved” on gay marriage, LGBT rights, and on the horrible political implications of DOMA, Sanders voted the right way on those issues when they counted.
Now, to be sure, Maddow also played a bit of an interview with Hillary Clinton in which she maintained that the passage of DOMA by her husband was done in order to stave off the likelihood of an even graver vote, a constitutional amendment that would have enshrined the repressive gender binary at the core of the nation’s bedrock legal framework. Clinton claimed that Clinton knew how horrible that would be, that his veto wouldn’t have been sustained in a Congressional vote anyway, and so he better go ahead and pursue the lesser evil to prevent the greater. By this account, passage of DOMA was a rearguard action to protect the LGBT community from the permanence of a constititutional amendment.
The problem with all this is that earlier today, I also watched this rather eye-popping video of Clinton on the Senate floor in 2004, which as many of us know, was in some sense the height of the conservative anti-gay backlash of the George W. era. That year, numerous states would hold referenda banning gay marriage in order to mobilize conservative voters to the polls in the presidential election.
In the speech, Clinton, of course, denies the need for a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. But in other respects, her rhetoric on this question is pretty much indistinguishable from that of her colleagues across the aisle. Here is an actual quotation from that video:
I believe marriage is not just a bond but a sacred bond between a man and a woman. I have had occasion in my life to defend marriage, to stand up for marriage, to believe in the hard work and challenge of marriage. So I take umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or to the fundamental bedrock principle that it exists between a man and a woman, going back into the midst of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principal role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults.
She takes “umbrage” at the notion that anyone would challenge her bona fides on the question of standing tall for the “sanctity” of heteronormative marriage. She stops short of calling for a constitutional amendment on the issue, but otherwise, she gives the Republicans a run for their money, when it comes to reactionary anti-gay rhetoric.
So I say all that to say this: if you are going to tout your candidate as a better advocate of LGBT rights, civil rights, women, and so forth — simply because she was more savvy in giving a shout out to those constituencies in her closing remarks — you might want to go back and check the record, to see precisely how ironclad her advocacy on these issues really has been.
She may not be a single-issue candidate. But the problem is this: on any one issue, can you count on her advocacy? If so, for how long?