For, and From, the History Books

by Margaret Michniewicz

This is a monumentally historic week for America.

At the time of this writing, Senator Barack Obama is scheduled to accept the nomination for the presidency by the Democratic Party, and Senator Hillary Clinton has already given her address to the convention in Denver. As the country takes another step forward in the path towards a society of greater justice and equality through this nomination of a bi-racial individual, so wonderfully reflective of our national cultural complexion, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the other historic jump the United States simultaneously made. Hillary Rodham Clinton's run for Commander in Chief was an achievement for so many more people than just her.

On August 28, Barack Obama will be fulfilling an aspect of the dream so eloquently envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 45 years earlier. In so doing, he represents so much more than a single politician merely winning an election. His nomination is a triumph for those heretofore marginalized, and an accomplishment for us all as a nation. It is an achievement in real terms, and also a victory in purely symbolic terms - and symbols can be powerfully important and valuable.

Hillary Clinton, equally so, embodies more than a candidate running for office. She, too, represented a triumph for another marginalized portion of society - women.

It's not surprising, after what we've observed through this presidential campaign thus far, that the vilification of Hillary Clinton continues on. It's clear that for many in the "punditocracy," Clinton was supposed to demurely retreat to the kitchen and return quietly bearing a "casserole" to Denver, to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi's metaphorical recommendation (the House Speaker having taken on the mantle, it seems, of the "Miss Manners" of DNC etiquette). For some strange reason, Senator Clinton was certainly not entitled to expect the traditional roll call vote. Sure, though he had no chance of winning in 1980 with his 1225 delegates, Ted Kennedy's name was placed in nomination; though he had no chance of winning in 1984, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's name was placed in nomination, with 465 votes. But you know, it's different for girls, even ones who have more than 1600 pledged delegates in hand.

Similarly, in June at the close of the primaries, Hillary was excoriated in the press for having the nerve to take a few days and prepare an appropriate closure to her historic campaign. For those of you partial to sports analogies, it's comparable to the Red Sox winning the World Series in Denver against the Colorado Rockies, and being derided for going back to Boston a few days later to have a ticker tape victory parade in the company of the Fenway faithful. No boys and girls, it isn't just all about her.

It is right, on the eve of this monumental occasion, that we feel pride and open ourselves up as a society to a new and better future of fuller equality. But even if Barack Obama goes on to win the general election and become president of the United States, it will not mean that this nation has automatically created a truly just society. There will still remain many barriers confronting people in large segments of society (in terms of race, in terms of gender, and sexual orientation, to name only a few).

Over the course of this election, I have spent much time perusing various political blogs - and the comments sections in particular have been disturbingly revealing of the sentiments and biases that do still exist out there.

To give one example. I have found, on some sites that are adamantly pro-Hillary, all too many instances where commenters have in one breath touted "their girl" and praise her to the heavens, and in the next breath, turning their wrath on something said or done by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or the DNC's Donna Brazile, or Michelle Obama - proceeding to use a string of sexist and misogynistic terms to describe them. It is, apparently, lost on them that there's a huge disconnect between championing Hillary Clinton and citing her for her excellent progressive social policies, and then venomously ranting about that bitch Pelosi. And then we have Randi Rhodes, from the liberal Air America, publicly spewing vile words about Senator Clinton… If all this type of viciousness is coming from the self-proclaimed progressive wing of the country, then it's clear we have a lot of work still to do.

Senator Clinton's speech addressing the DNC was on the 88th anniversary of another milestone in American history: the "granting of the vote" to women, through passage of the 19th Amendment. You've got to love that phrasing in the textbooks, reminding us how eternally grateful we should be. Rarely is there mention of the true fight it took for brave suffragettes to wrest this right from those magnanimous old boys.

Thanks to women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Virginia Woodhull (who ran for president at a time when she would not even be able to cast a vote for herself, 1872), Alice Paul, and so many others whose names we'll never know - we have had the right, and responsibility, of voting in this most extraordinary of presidential election seasons.