"It is time people start asking themselves who is our stronger candidate against John McCain in the fall? And if people will only look at that that strengthens our argument...I'm making that argument. I believe it. Obviously I would not be working as hard as I am with the conviction with the passion I feel for taking back the White House if I did not believe it. And it's especially important that we try to get people to start focusing on this..."
-Hillary Clinton, May 16, 2008 conference with bloggers hosted by Peter Daou
Clinton believes the Democratic nominee should be the candidate who has the best chance of winning the leadership of the Executive branch. And she believes she is that candidate. Yet political journalists have said she should quit despite overwhelming evidence from primaries and exit polls that Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate: greater support from swing states, more votes (including FL and MI), stronger in one-vote-per-person voting system (similar to general election), more support from huge important groups (women, Hispanics, Reagan Democrats, seniors), etc.
The journalists' behavior is even more suspect because they have not acted this way toward another candidate. According to Eric Boehlert, never in the history of the United States have journalists converged to tell a candidate to drop out during the primary season:
"Strong second-place candidates such as Ronald Reagan (1976), Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Jerry Brown, all of whom campaigned through the entire primary season, and most of whom took their fights all the way to their party's nominating conventions, were never tagged by the press and told to go home.""Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history," wrote Steven Stark in the Boston Phoenix. "When Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she's constantly attacked..."
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Boehlert says it's acceptable for bloggers to suggest that a candidate quit but that mainstream media should not tell voters how to vote. He observes that this primary season pundits are "... announcing not only that voters should not support Clinton, but that she should also quit. She should stop competing.
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...this is not part of some larger liberal media conspiracy where the Beltway press is desperate to elect a Democrat and that's why so many journalists are anxious to get Clinton to quit -- because it might help the party's chances in November. The truth is, as The Daily Howler noted last week [April], the Beltway media's love affair with John McCain only grows deeper and more affectionate with each passing day.
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Boehlert says in other primary contests there was an "assumption among journalists that candidates had earned the right to decide when they should quit. Journalists also respected the fact that candidates represented a sizable portion of the primary voting public and that the candidates owed it to their supporters to fight on, that there was a symbolic significance for the candidates -- and their supporters -- to persevere.With Clinton, though, the press seems to have almost complete disregard for the 14 million voters [17 million currently] who have backed her candidacy, as well as the idea that she is their representative...they treat her entire campaign as some sort of vanity exercise in which voters do not exist."
Boehlert says other candidates were praised for continuing their campaigns. And I believe Hillary Clinton should be praised for her strength, resilience and leadership during this campaign. Clinton is the candidate who has been able to unify 40-60% of Democrats for the longest stretch during the nomination contest. No one else has been able to do that and no one will be able to do that. Against all odds Clinton prevailed many times. She is a leader strong enough to win the presidency.
The main question is, "Why have pundits ganged up against Hillary Clinton to quit but apparently they have not done that to other candidates in U.S. history?" Clinton has been singled out and in order to find out why it is necessary to determine how Clinton is different from every other major presidential nominee candidate. One difference is gender. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that the main motivation of pundits who are telling Clinton to quit is that they are sexist. I'm not saying that sexism is the main cause, only that it is reasonable to assume it is. Also, note that some women have sexist beliefs so a female pundit is not necessarily free of sexism.
People have said media pundits are demanding Clinton quit because of sexism. Many pundits are trying hard to convince people they are not sexist by writing entire columns about the subject. But the "I'm not sexist" argument doesn't sound true because no pundit has been able to explain why the media has ganged up against Clinton to demand she quit but has not done so to any other candidate in U.S. history.
A person arguing that sexism is not the reason for the demands to quit would need to figure out how else Clinton is different from every other major presidential nominee candidate. I will repeat Steven Stark's words: "Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history." There have been contests where at the end of the primary/caucus season the top candidates had similar delegate and/or popular vote support. What is it about Clinton that is undeniably different from every other strong presidential nominee candidate that would cause the majority of pundits to tell her to quit when they did not do this to other candidates throughout U.S. history?
This question does not seek to analyze whether Clinton should or shouldn't quit; it seeks to analyze journalists' behavior, in specific what motivated political journalists to coalesce as a gang to get Clinton to quit considering that journalists have never acted that way towards any other presidential nomination candidate from U.S. history.
Source:
http://mediamatters.org/columns/20080430
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