The witch ain't dead, and Chris Matthews is a ding-dong

Gloria Steinem noticed. The Ms. founder wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times called "Women Are Never Front-Runners," a piece that was assertively retro in its "Our Bodies Ourselves," "Free to Be ... You and Me" rhetoric. Steinem pointed out that a woman with Obama's résumé would never have become even a U.S. senator, let alone a viable candidate for president; she reminded readers that black men got the right to vote 50 years before women did, that Obama "is seen as unifying by his race while [Clinton] is seen as divisive by her sex," that "she is accused of 'playing the gender card' when citing the old boys' club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations," that "some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60 ... proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age." God, it was so embarrassing, so 1972, so Women's Studies 101. What was more embarrassing was that it was so right on. And I wasn't the only one who thought so. From practically the moment it was published through the results of the New Hampshire primary, Steinem's Op-Ed has been the most e-mailed story in the New York Times.

Hillary Clinton noticed, and called Chris Matthews out for being "obsessed" with her. He meekly responded, "It's not obsession," and then broadcast the moment proudly on his Sunday morning show. He also pinched her cheek.

Some young feminists -- in the demographic that was supposed to have thrown over the woman in favor of one charismatic man or another -- noticed, and took Edwards to task for his toothy opportunism, and the media for their bizarrely antiquated double standards.

By the time the New Hampshire numbers started to roll in on Tuesday night, the pundits were beginning to notice that something, though they couldn't quite put their finger on what, was not turning out as they had so jeeringly, confidently predicted. Women, it seemed, had come to the polls in New Hampshire and voted for Hillary Clinton.

Suddenly, the choking up that had the day before been either faked or a sign of her unraveling was being credited with changing people's minds. "I never saw her like that before," said Jack Cafferty on CNN. "Sympathetic. Real." CNN's Gloria Borger informed us that "there is a lot of talk tonight about whether Hillary's tearing up made any difference," noting that a striking percentage of female Hillary voters told exit pollsters that they had decided whom to vote for on that very day, and had, for a variety of reasons, given Hillary Clinton the New Hampshire primary.

Meanwhile, Matthews was flailing. Color had begun to drain from his face as the early, close results began to trickle in. He looked like he had swallowed something much less tasty than what had been served up in Iowa. Halfway through the night he had his arms crossed defensively across his chest, a petulant and shamed schoolboy, and was proclaiming that he "was in the room" at Saturday night's debate and had thought it "a draw," but that apparently Clinton's performance had been "good enough here for women who wanted to root for her." He desperately recited the numbers of every pollster who had predicted her loss like a catechism, focusing on how it was not just he who had misfired. There must be some supernatural explanation: Could voters have been responding to Clinton's tears? Was it because the University of New Hampshire was not in session? Surely these numbers would change, and prove him right. Hillary could not simply have been winning an election.

Tom Brokaw, reduced to being a guest on Matthews' show, since he is retired and his network is reluctant to break into reality show programming to bring prospective viewers news of the presidential election, had also apparently noticed the treatment Clinton had received in the grabby hands of his colleagues, and seemed to relish his opportunity to spank Matthews. "This is one of the great triumphs of American presidential politics," Brokaw said sternly, "and the rest of us who were saying out loud that this was not going to happen, we've got a lot of explaining to do." Every time he appeared again, Brokaw seemed anxious to hammer this point home. "The people out there are going to begin to make some judgments about us if we don't begin to temper that temptation to constantly get ahead of what the voters are deciding," he told Matthews, who reflexively barked back about the commitment and quality of polling institutions. Polling "is a lot less important than letting this process go forward as it should," said Brokaw.

"The press was dead wrong," said Pat Buchanan. "We had virtually canonized Obama and said he'd been born in Bethlehem ... Something has happened here ... The press has been telling us she's gone and the women came out and said no, she's not. What New Hampshire did was stand up and come out and body-slam the national press, the pollsters, the whole bunch."

"Do you know who they're blaming?" liberal Air America pundit Rachel Maddow asked Matthews with a huge grin in her voice as she cited Talking Points Memo. "They're blaming Chris Matthews. People are citing specifically Chris not only for his own views but as a symbol of what the mainstream is doing."

Is it possible that for the first time in my life, my reaction to a political news cycle could have mirrored a larger national feeling? Could Matthews and his threatened brethren, who came damned close to putting this Hillary disbeliever on the path to feminist redemption (who knows how I'll vote; but I do know that I am happy that I'll now likely have the opportunity to cast a vote for the candidate of my choice and not of MSNBC's), actually have shaped what happened on Tuesday in New Hampshire in a similar fashion? Exit polling and analysis be damned, we'll likely never really know what electoral alchemy landed Hillary Clinton an unexpected victory. Finally, around 11:30, Matthews was forced to suck it up. Looking like he was chewing on a lemon, he said of his nemesis, "She stood there and took the heat under what looked to be a difficult time. I give her a lot of personal credit. I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again."

An unlikely promise. But here's a message from the women of New Hampshire, and me, to Hillary Clinton's exuberant media antagonists: You have no power here. Now be gone, before somebody drops a house on you!

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)