The other night I got an irate e-mail from an old acquaintance on the left. He was furious because I'd quipped in an interview that if people didn't stop making sexist comments about Hillary Clinton, I might just have to vote for her. Maybe he missed the ironic conditional: he thought I supported her. He went on to excoriate Clinton: she is militaristic and ultranationalistic; she would carry on Bush's policy of a long-term occupation of Iraq, define foreign policy around the "war on terror," support the hard-liners in Israel and promote the centrist-Democratic left-smashing ideology of the DLC. We need to rebuild the left, he concluded, and that's why he was supporting... Barack Obama.
-
Who's Afraid of Judy Maccabee?
Katha Pollitt: Women increasingly are taking leadership roles in Jewish life--and that's a problem?
-
Feminists for McCain? Not So Much
Katha Pollitt: NARAL and Planned Parenthood give him a big fat zero. What else do you need to know?
-
Iron My Skirt
Katha Pollitt: Once the bitterness of the present moment has faded, people will recognize they owe Hillary Clinton a standing ovation, even if they can't stand her.
-
Déjà Vu in South Dakota
Katha Pollitt: It's going to take a concerted national effort to defeat the state's latest anti-choice ballot initiative.
-
Backlash Spectacular
Katha Pollitt: From campus to courtroom, longstanding gains for women are being eroded everywhere you look.
-
Men of the Cloth
Katha Pollitt: When it comes to keeping women pregnant and in their place, polygamous Mormons and the Pope have a lot in common.
-
Sweatin' to the Koran
Katha Pollitt: What do burqas, Osama and fascism have to do with six hours of man-free exercise time at Harvard?
How real are the differences among the top three? Let's take a look. All three candidates want to disengage troops from Iraq while maintaining some kind of military handle on the place. If getting all the troops out ASAP is your top priority, vote for Richardson, Kucinich or Gravel. All of the top three are largely uncritical of Israel (Clinton, in fact, voiced support for a Palestinian state in 1998 and was creamed for it). Clinton probably is a shade more hawkish than the others, but all three buy the trope of the "war on terror"--in August, Obama even said he would strike Pakistan if that's what it took to capture Osama bin Laden. Maybe that was a slip or a mini-pander to 9/11 voters (well, not so mini if you're a Pakistani). He has since made more peaceful noises and followed Edwards in supporting the global abolition of nuclear weapons (a position originally put forward by Ronald Reagan, and now by Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and George Shultz, so let's not get carried away). On domestic policy, the three have similar boilerplatish positions on education and immigration; all three are prochoice without qualifications. Hurray! But, although nearly three in ten Americans are poor or near-poor, only Edwards has made a campaign issue out of social and economic inequality. Only Edwards seems to grasp the significance of our widening class divisions. Obama, indeed, has suggested he'll reduce taxes on "the middle class," which may be code for "expect no big government initiatives."
How tied in are the top three with corporations and Wall Street? Hillary Clinton is notoriously unapologetic about receiving large donations from wealthy interests. But Obama has received a lot of corporate and Wall Street money too--in fact, he's received more money from hedge funds than Clinton. Edwards has refused to accept donations from lobbyists (Obama soon followed his example), but this could be merely a nice piece of branding: there are plenty of ways for the interest groups lobbyists represent to put favors in the favor bank besides writing a check to the candidate.
Right now Obama, not antipoverty Edwards, has the progressive halo, even though his stands on the issues don't place him clearly to the left of his main rivals. I don't know how many people have mentioned to me that he spent four years as a community organizer. That's great, but it doesn't necessarily tell us where he's going. After all, you would not have predicted from Clinton's work for the Children's Defense Fund and her many close friendships in the liberal policy world--or even her strong speeches in support of women's rights around the globe as First Lady--that she would favor the Republican-created welfare reform bill her husband signed in 1996.
If the primary were today, I might vote for Edwards, even though he sometimes seems a bit like a hologram. Or I might go for the candidate I actually agree with, Dennis Kucinich, or the one who seems the most human, Mike Gravel. However, there are still nearly four endless months to slog through: I could be won over by a candidate who just stands up and speaks his or her mind without calculating the effect of every syllable on some indecisive mini-demographic. Someone who will speak frankly about the disaster that is the war on drugs, say, or call for free college education. I would even vote for a candidate who refuses to name a favorite Bible passage on national television. "Tim," this candidate might say, "I'd be happy to talk Scripture with you over a cup of coffee after the show, but in this country religion is private and personal, and if I'm elected I'll keep it that way." There, would-be Presidents of America, was that so hard?
* * *
Random House has just published my new book, Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories. It's a collection of personal essays, only two of which have been previously published (in The New Yorker), about love, sex, betrayal, motherhood, divorce, proofreading pornography and the decline and fall of practically everything, including myself.
- Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
- If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.

Buzzflash
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Newsvine
Reddit
