Activists Show a Cautious Optimism for Clinton
Updated: 3/8/07, 11:10 a.m.
In a sense, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was preaching to the choir Tuesday, when she spoke at the annual Washington luncheon for EMILY's List. More than 10 months before the first scheduled Democratic primary, the group, which raises money for prochoice, Democratic female candidates, is already backing the former first lady.
But the event, officially designed to celebrate the sweeping Democratic victory in the 2006 midterm elections, had an oddly discordant tone–at once supremely confident that Clinton's rise to the presidency is all but inevitable and unusually self-conscious about the liabilities that could derail her candidacy.
On the surface, optimism about Clinton reigned. The other elected officials at the event, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and newly elected Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, praised Clinton. The movie introducing Clinton, which the senator insisted she had not seen beforehand, even included a mock inauguration, complete with a simulated image of Clinton taking the oath of office. EMILY's List President Ellen Malcolm declared that Clinton was the most likely candidate to snap the Democrats' losing streak in presidential elections.
"She is the only candidate on the Democratic side who has stood up and gone toe to toe with the vast Republican machine and come out the winner," Malcolm said.
But ongoing concerns about Clinton's strength as a candidate were never far away. At the beginning of the luncheon, Malcolm rattled off and then dismissed a list of what she said were common claims about why female candidates are unelectable. But the list–which included that "she's too divisive" and "her husband will be a problem"–seemed tailored to fend off common worries about the Clinton campaign.
Malcolm also suggested that Clinton's views on the war in Iraq are "crystal clear," and Clinton herself declared, "If this president will not end this war in Iraq, then as the next president, I will." But her vote to authorize military force in Iraq, her support for that vote long after many Democrats had publicly disavowed theirs, and her refusal to say that she would immediately withdraw troops if elected have made opponents of the war suspicious of her candidacy, and Clinton offered no details on her position Tuesday.
The rest of Clinton's speech played to the crowd. She discussed her Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced Tuesday, which aims to even the pay discrepancy between men and women. She unveiled a "women's leadership network," which hopes to enlist thousands of women to assist her campaign and will highlight Clinton's support from female pioneers like former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and tennis great Billie Jean King. Her long-standing advocacy of expanding healthcare coverage for the uninsured also figured prominently.
Clinton was even self-deprecating at times, discussing the rapid progress female politicians have made since EMILY's List was founded in 1985.
"I certainly have gone through a lot of hairstyles since then, but it's not exactly ancient history," she said, alluding to her notoriously shifting fashion choices.
The speech was received enthusiastically, with standing ovations at both its start and its close. But the emotional highpoint of the event was Malcolm's animated introduction of Clinton, not the senator's own more subdued speech.
As the luncheon ended, volunteers handed out buttons emblazoned with "I Can Be President" in enormous letters, offering attendees the tantalizing possibility of a woman in the White House. Clinton's website was written below in a much smaller font, again raising the specter that the idea of a female as president may be more appealing than Clinton herself.
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