How Hillary's Hands Got Dirty in the Presidential Race

Q: What happens when idealism gives way to ambition?
A: Hands get dirty.

Dirty hands is an expression used to describe the moral standing of government officials, and would be government officials (otherwise known as politicians), who compromise moral principles in favor of achieving certain results perceived to be better for specific constituencies: Officials who put aside moral values are said to have dirty hands. [See this link.]

In the course of the Democratic primary, Hillary’s hand got dirty. Here’s how. She feared, as a female candidate, there would be a bias against her as a woman among the electorate. She had good reason to believe she’d be perceived as too soft for the job of president. So she launched her Democratic primary campaign trying to convince her party she was tougher than Barack Obama.

She ran ads about answering the White House phone at 3am—when crisis always calls. She kept the nuclear option on the table for dealings with Iran. She took a hard-line on foreign policy. She drew on Obama’s discussions of domestic issues and his social justice background to portray him as a more ‘sensitive’ person, somehow softer. It’s the language of gender stereotypes. She wanted to send the message that she was more of man than Barack Obama.

When that approach raised doubts about her sensitivity—was she woman enough?—Hillary poured out her emotions, tearing up on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, acting a bit more subdued and ‘feminine,’ and seeking sympathy in a harsh, judgmental political world. Hillary supporter, Geraldine Ferraro, took it upon herself to play up the idea that men have an unfair political advantage, claiming that Obama had it ‘easier’ as a black man, by virtue of being a man than Clinton did as a white woman, by virtue of being a woman.

But what abut her whiteness?

Caught in a gender bind, where being more manly than Obama might cost her feminine votes and being less manly than Obama might cost her masculine votes, Hillary turned to race. During the Pennsylvania primary, she began to highlight her appeal to a certain demographic, as compared with Obama: white, blue-collar, Catholic, European ethnic men seemed to prefer her. She took that demographic and ran with it, through Ohio and Indiana and West Virginia, to the super delegates.

Over time, the other rubrics were dropped and she emerged as the white candidate and argued she should get the nomination because she was more electable in battleground states because she could compete with McCain for the white vote.

When it’s pointed out by a political analyst that she gets certain segments of the white vote over Obama, it’s one thing. Coming from her, it’s another. In making her pitch about her whiteness, she never explained what about her positions on the issues would make her more appealing to white folks. Few commentators asked. Jon Stewart, on the Daily Show, lampooned West Virginia voters in a tongue-in-cheek report on the racism and ignorance of West Virginia voters (click here to watch it).

More seriously, CNN political commentator David Gergen said after West Virginia and Oregon that Hillary should tell white voters if they preferred her over Obama because of her race, then she didn’t want their vote. (click here to watch it) But she never did. That’s how her hands got dirty:

Having had a career devoted to civil rights and social justice, and having been First Lady to the White man Toni Morrison dubbed the first Black president, Hillary brought the message of white supremacist voters to the Democratic party leadership and made a virtue out of it, when she should have denounced it.