As any archer will tell you, there is a difference between hitting the bull’s eye and hitting the skirt. Twice in a week now, I see how the DNC damaged this country by contriving the 2008 nomination process. Two issues that Hillary Rodham Clinton made eminently clear that she would own, from before she declared her candidacy for president, were universal health care and a foreclosure freeze accompanied by restructuring of mortgage rates. Well, we did not get HRC, so we did not see these issues addressed as she had outlined them.
Healthcare: Yes, we did, after an 18-month battle get something, but a badly flawed something, that continues to exclude too many, a large percentage of whom are women, and does not include the single most important factor that would have neutralized completely this week’s argument between the administration and Catholic institutions: the single -payer option. Had THAT been a non-negotiable part of the package, this week’s issue would never have arisen.
Now this morning, the president presents a plan to help some mortgagees in trouble. Had HRC’s HOLC or HOME been passed, all mortgagees in trouble would have had access to renegotiation, and foreclosures would have been temporarily frozen long enough for refinance to have taken place – years ago.
Mortgage Settlement Leaves Some Foreclosure Victims Wanting
Too little, too late for so many.
The Dems are trying to drum up some enthusiasm for an incumbent candidate whose inexperience and self-assuredness have served up insufficiency and inadequacy. The one who was NOT ready from day one. The unnecessary debate over women’s’ healthcare and the limitations of this morning’s settlement with the banks do little to inspire team spirit.
As usual, it is the surrogates who must argue with passion that the White House is doing the right thing by women, but is that enough? It should be the incumbent inspiring the passion. I find Karen Finney a particularly effective voice on the issue of women’s health care, but as I watch and listen to her, it occurs to me that, as she inspires me, it is not Obama I wish to follow into this battle, but rather Karen herself! I do not know whose voice we will hear speaking for those left behind by the bank settlement, but certainly one will emerge.
In the same way that “Hillary Sent Me”, absent Obama personally reaching out specifically to HRC supporters, left me completely unmotivated to support him (and even more passionately wanting Hillary), this continuing surrogacy strategy is doing nothing but spotlighting leaders, real ones, that I would much prefer to share a trench with than Obama. Ms. Finney is quickly emerging as one of those.
So, as I continue to harbor hope that in some way Hillary Clinton ends up at the top of the ballot sooner rather than later, I see in some of the surrogates who defend Obama’s inadequate programs, my future leaders. Elizabeth Warren is one, and Karen Finney is another to watch. She has that Joan of Arc quality that HRC has. Yes, I would follow her into battle just as I would follow Hillary. Would I follow Obama? No, I still simply cannot do that. How can you follow the “leader” who leads from behind?
You only get points for hitting the target. Obama continually hits the skirt.
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*Edited to add* It was atrociously negligent of me not to add the link to Karen’s seminal article on this issue which is one of many reasons why I point to her as a leader. A “must read!”
Church, flock at odds
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The Department of Homegirl Security 
I’m totally with you about Elizabeth Warren being a real leader. I’m not really moved by Karen Finney because I thought she was an advisor/pundit and so she’s not on my political radar. The biggest thing motivating many Democrats this election cycle is not the candidate in their corner, but a complete aversion to their other option. In short, for those I know, it’s not about Obama being re-elected so much as it is about Santorum, Romney, Paul, or Gingrich not being elected. That’s not the kind of strategy I’d want to be depending on.
It probably just me, but I’m not looking for some knight in shining armor to follow. I just need someone with a good grasp of issues and core Democratic policies that I care about doing their best so that I can lead myself to whatever goal I seek. I don’t like following.
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Karen has an excellent grasp of Democratic issues – perhaps the best I have heard aside from HRC. The hosts never give her enough time to say what she needs to, but aI also follow her posts on The Hill and The Grio.
I am not looking for a knight in shining armor, either. I just want to see some leadership – from the fore. I see that in Karen and Warren both. I am referring to the kind of leadership that would have fought hard and brought the sides together on the single-payer option. Both Karen and Elizabeth have that.
My REAL point is that the “surrogacy strategy” which I have written of before here and elsewhere is having a side effect that perhaps the Obama team did not predict. The surrogates are looking far more “leaderly” than the candidate.
Karen is one to watch. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I am watching her for everybody. I see great things in her. The fact that she is not running for office means nothing. She has been involved behind the scenes for going on 20 years. She has learned a lot, but she also has a lot of native ability – personal skills, charm, and whopping intelligence – a lot like someone else I know who was her role model. .
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I agree about the surrogacy strategy. Leading from a distance doesn’t earn loyalty. If I know and understand these things, I don’t know why the smarter, more sucessful people in power don’t. That doesn’t inspire comfidence either.
Glad you’ve found one “under 50” that’s worth while. (Please see the jest in that comment.) 😉
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😉 I do! I can see it in many even younger than that and regret the loss of Christina-Taylor Green who also seemed to have had that native something in her that emerges in the best leaders. I could make a list, but at the moment I am little occupied trying to keep track of my list of Catholic women leaders (Karen is one) who are coming out against the bishops.
I really do not have age issues, but draw the line where an assumption is made that old dogs cannot learn to use new tricks such as technology effectively. I have made a point of friending on FB many older HRC supporters. They may be retired, but some of them worked in some pretty amazing tech fields.
I also draw the line on the age/coolness issue. Two words: The Stones. They still rule. Madonna was also very impressive at the Super Bowl despite comments I had read in advance about age and the half-time show. But she’s still only at half-time. She has many years of fun stuff ahead of her.
All that said, Karen Finney is the kind of young woman who never fails to realign the values in any debate where she thinks things have gone off-topic. I listen carefully. She never lets us forget the troops, the American workers, the struggling parents. Clearly she was raised by parents who instilled important American values in her, and I admire her parents a lot.
I also admire YOUR parents a lot! Your mom knocks me out! And your dad surprises both of us sometimes in ways that delight me! 🙂 They also raised a pretty awesome daughter!
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You can add my congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro, from CT-3 to your list. I have a personal connection to this issue and it is a large part of why I no longer practice Catholicism, so I’m following this closely as well. I won’t bore you with details, but suffice to say that when you are made to feel dirty and “lesser” for no reason when all your looking for is simple school-nurse-type medical attention, it sticks with you. I never want anyone to be made to feel that way ever, EVER again.
My parents are admirable. I don’t know if I – a par-employed big mouth – am deserving of the same sentiment, but I’ll take the compliment nonetheless. Thank you. If they’d just create a Jester of State position I think I’d be set.
Then again, Biden would probably have first dibs and that’s a lot of comedic potential to compete with.
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I knew there had to be a picture.
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((( 😀 ))) ROTFL!!!!
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The list grows! The way Kathleen Kennedy Townsend just spoke about her two daughters who graduated from Catholic colleges, I am waiting for the GOP men to start the Kennedy-sexual-impropriety meme about them.
Just saw Biden’s comment about Obama working this out. When men say they are going to “work something out” that involves OUR bodies and OUR choices I shiver.
O/T but not really, the Church needs restructuring. I have been thinking this this the past few nights while at home and not occupied with work-related issues. I sometimes feel like Martin Luther. Like I could make a list. But I AM a Catholic. I don’t want to change that part of my identity – it’s too ingrained. That said, I do not feel particularly embraced most of the time.
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If the gender gap on this issue continues to grow, there will have to be a discussion about it on the Democratic side. I don’t see how anything can break along a gender line in the 21st century and have that be accepted as “a girl thing”. The church will gladly cover the boys’ Viagra and no one’s pissed about that. Wang pills are viewed as a right for men, but a woman having the final say over whether or not she gets pregnant is abhorrent.
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Because, according to Church doctrine, we are supposed to propagate the faith by reproducing. It’s a philosophy that is so many centuries old only a religious scholar could tell us where it originates, but my guess is that it is somewhere in the New Testament – so really old! Of COURSE the blue pills would be covered – they aid the process!
But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the women in the 1st century AD (or whatever initials they use now) and the men in the 21st. You can’t have a 20-century gap between the sexes any more than you can have a 10-century gap between countries and cultures. It is unworkable.
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The blue pills are not going to do a thing if the woman is beyond reproductive age. Or if they’re using birth control. Or if the man’s partner is of the same sex. The pills are covered no matter what the gentleman’s particular situation is.
Birth control is prescribed for reasons other than pregnancy prevention. It’s medicine and yet that doesn’t matter. It’s still against somebody’s god.
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Yes, as Karen enumerated in her article that I originally and unforgivably neglected to link in this post. I have (mea culpa) addressed that sin of omission. Please see Karen’s article for the litany of female conditions, ASIDE from birth control, for which this treatment might be prescribed.
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As to healthcare, if my opinion meant anything, I would take this fit being thrown by religious groups to make a case for getting employers out of the business of determining kind of insurance is best for their employees. I would take several ideas from the German healthcare model. I would much prefer making my case about that than the wobbly economy in an election, but hey, what do I know.
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Karen Finney seems very talented (didn’t know much about her) but she strikes me as someone who’d rather whisper in the President’s ear than occupy the office herself.
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Well, she has already been in that position, and it is an important facet of her multi-faceted background, but just as we are beginning to see her before the cameras more, we are also hearing Karen’s own voice more.
As I listen to her, I am more certain daily that she is a wise, brilliant, important voice not just for women, for working Americans, for the troops, for the values we hold as Americans. This is why I am campaigning for her to have her own forum on MSNBC, but if Karen decided tomorrow to run for some office, I would get right behind her in a heartbeat.
Whatever role she should decide to assume, Ms. Finney,, to me, looks like what COULD be the future of the Democratic Party – a vision that brings some redemption with it, for me.
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That inspires hope. When Hillary conceded in June 2008, after 37 years as a registered Democrat, I jumped ship and reregistered as Independent. But my heart has always been Democratic!
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I have heard that from so many of my Hillary friends. But here’s an important point, she never did concede – she only suspended, and her campaign remains suspended. She can always reactivate. I still have hope that we will take the party back. I am writing HRC in on my primary vote. (That’s one reason I stayed Dem.)
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I’m lucky to live in a state where you don’t have to officially register as a member of one Party or another to vote in the primaries. I fully plan to write in Hillary in my state’s primary at the end of this month. 🙂
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Hi Jen, Keep me informed on the ST. We can mount a campaign.
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[…] not in the context of Hillary making another presidential run. But in this particular post, Falling Short. I did state a position similar to what Dowd said. Women leaders, acting as surrogates for […]
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