To this day I have in my files a copy of the front page of the New York Times from 1984, with a photo of Presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale and his choice for Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro raising their clasped hands in an upside-down V. Of course their hopes for victory were doomed, as perhaps foreshadowed by the gesture.
Irrespective of their failure to foil Ronald Reagan's re-election, I will never forget, as a girl who came to political consciousness during the late '60s and early '70s, the feeling of joy and hope that literally swelled my chest to almost bursting with pride that a
wif was on the ballot. I was so grateful (and still am) to the wifs a half-generation before me, who took put their marriages, careers, and futures on the line in their quest to bust up the lingering 1950s concepts of what it means to be female, and who had such a strong impact on my own road to self-liberation from all those restricting and oppressive preconceptions of wifhood.
One would expect, then, that I might be passionately backing Hillary Clinton in her bid for the Presidency. NOT! Hillary is
chalk squeaking across the political board. Hillary is riding around on her husband's coattails and claims 35 years of experience whereas the extent of her service is merely 1.7 terms as a carpetbagging Senator. Hillary can't figure out who she really is and instead strings together an odd assortment of personnae. (The difference between Hillary and Bill, and one department in which she is far superior to her
wer, is that generally speaking she has nearly perfect -- actually, scary -- control over which personna to use under what circumstances; whereas Bill's behavior seems fairly out of control lately.)
Apart from my distate for her personality, and some differences I have with the policies she is laying out ... my biggest fear if Hillary is nominated and elected is that she will need to maintain her cool and make rational decisions while sitting, most of the time, in the Oval Office -- the room where Bill used his cigar on Monica. I imagine that always present somewhere in her consciousness will be that lovely image and remembrance of all the pain and shame that ensued. On the other hand, if Hillary can compartmentalize the present from the past so thoroughly that the Memory of Monica is truly not present anywhere in her psyche while she fulfills her duties as President of the United States ... well, then, she scares me more than ever.
