Robi Ganguly’s Big Ideas

Last week I wrote about why I was voting for Hillary Clinton and my final point was about the disparity in media treatment between Hillary (a woman) and the rest of the candidates for President (all men).

Since then I’ve been doing some more reading and seeing some stories that talked about this issue and I thought it made sense to share a couple of them:

• In Ohio, CNN brought this issue up with a group of women voters in the context of a discussion over sexism and racism. 
• It seems to me that their conclusion is that sexism has been and continues to be acceptable in popular culture in ways that aren’t tolerable for racism.
• Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times that:
• “in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man.”

Additionally, Paul Krugman writes much more elegantly than I did that the Obama campaign is in danger of becoming a “cult of personality”. As I wrote last week, I respect Obama. I’m not angry with him and I certainly don’t view him or his supporters as “the enemy”. The fervor that exists around his campaign is at the same time inspiring and worrisome. I wonder why so many supporters of his seem intent on saying things that imply that it’s their candidate or no one.

Additionally, he uses a phrase that I’ve been struggling to describe – Clinton Rules:

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.

I’d like to reach out to anyone who supports Obama and say this to you:

We’re both in favor of some very similar things. We have differing approaches, perhaps. We think that the Presidency means different things, it appears to me. But don’t, not even for a moment, forget that what we’re really talking about here is the promotion of the core Democratic values and goals. We’re not just about one candidate. Because if your candidate wins, I’m going to be by your side, frustrated with the application of “Clinton Rules” to Obama. I hope that you’d be big enough to do the same if the situation is reversed.

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