Hillary's final curtain

Now that Clinton's campaign is over, I want to remember her as she's truly been -- a pain in the ass, sometimes ill-behaved, and a woman who changed history.

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Politics, Feminism, Rebecca Traister, 2008 election, Life

Reuters/Jim Bourg

Sen. Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters at the National Building Museum in Washington June 7, 2008.

June 8, 2008 | WASHINGTON D.C. -- Hillary Clinton was almost done with her terrific concession speech when she got around to patting herself on the back. The setting was grand, with people hanging over balconies in Washington's National Building Museum waiting to get their final glimpse of what remained of her historic candidacy for president. The massive hall was heavily air conditioned, but it couldn't keep the outside heat -- so sweltering that it prompted speculation that, among other things, Clinton controls the weather -- from seeping in, and the emotional crowd shimmered, their faces slick with perspiration and, here and there, tears.

Clinton had praised Obama, yelled "Yes, we can!" with real feeling, and done her damnedest to start a chant about why her supporters "must help elect Barack Obama our president." It was then that she took a moment -- one of the first since she began her campaign 16 months ago -- to unfurl a little feminist plumage.

"I know there are barriers and biases out there, often unconscious," she said, as the room roared with affirmation. She continued, giving them the girl-power fulfillment they were thirsting for: "You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories," said Clinton, "unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the president of the United States." She paused. People screamed. "And that is truly remarkable."

Clinton was having her moment. Not, as she began the speech by wryly noting, the kind of moment -- or the kind of party -- that she had planned to attend at this stage in the presidential election cycle. But with the magnificently weird and wild primary season over, and Clinton the loser, she was making sure no one forgets that, while she may have missed her goal, she still staked out a giant piece of social history.

"To those who are disappointed that we couldn't go all the way -- especially the young people who put so much into this campaign," Clinton said, "it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours." Perhaps most moving was her observation that, while "we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it's got about 18 million cracks in it."

Clinton's campaign is not yet cold (and, I suspect, will probably maintain a reptilian pulse in the months between now and Denver), but the urge to eulogize its place in women's history is powerful. Already there is the beating of breasts and rending of garments from the true-believer Hillary feminists, a wailing wall of second-wave sorrow and swooning celebration of the doors opened to their daughters and granddaughters. (Just think, little Sally Ann, some day you too can live out your life's ambition and be painted an emasculating succubus by a press corps that clings almost erotically to the fantasy of your eventual defeat! Yea!) Now that she no longer poses a threat, there are tributes streaming in from feminist pundits who backed Obama and are now comfortable enough to gingerly pat Clinton on the back and extend some tepid "You go girl" plaudits from a distance safe enough to protect them from her Old White Lady cooties. Then there are those critics sticking to their guns, reminding us that Clinton's loss is no one's fault but her own, that she may have been a lady, but she was no feminist heroine. Maybe if she hadn't voted for the war; maybe if she hadn't been married to Bill; maybe if she hadn't played the gender card; maybe if she'd been more of a feminist icon. Then, maybe, these people could have gotten excited about her as a presidential candidate.

But while we may all wish that our groundbreaking leaders came in prettier packages, and that high butterfat cheese was good for us, the reality is that we get what we get. And we got Hillary Clinton. In no small part, we probably got her thanks to the very reasons so many can't abide her: her ambition, her ruthlessness, her gift for triangulation, her marriage, her centrism, her hawkishness. It's an exceedingly uncommon alchemy; in more than two centuries of American history, no woman has been able to break into the presidential boys club, and I can't think of many women of sterling liberal character who would have succeeded where she failed to satisfy all feminists. Wake me when Barbara Ehrenreich can win Ohio, you know?

Like it or not, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first female battering ram to rattle the Oval Office door, and while sorrowful Hillary-heads may lyrically and lovingly catalog her many achievements, her bravery and grace, I'd prefer to think of her as she actually has been: a pain in the ass to support, an often inept and ungainly campaigner. She was ill-behaved, she made mistakes, and waged an often dirty and tone-deaf campaign, performing precious few electoral pirouettes. But she also pulverized any quaint notions of what presidential races are supposed to look like and how girls might compete in them.

Language fails us when we say that Clinton "ran for president." Hillary Clinton didn't just run for president. She hustled and jumped and slogged and cried and ate and drank and didn't sleep and put up with her nutty underminer of a husband for president. She lit herself, and everything around her, on fire for president.

Clinton behaved with the kind of naked drive and aggression and mercilessness we revere in, for example, football greats, wrestling stars and military heroes. Her political ambition and ruthlessness are qualities native to anyone putting themselves up for the job of running the country. That includes Barack Obama, who is an inspiring leader I fervently hope will be our next president, but who is not, despite what some of his supporters seem to believe, built entirely of altruism and hope and, I don't know, puppies. One of the great things about our history of ambivalence and resentment toward Clinton was the almost sweet relief we could take in knowing from the start that her raw will to power was going to grate on and enrage us.

And, yes, it's terrific that generations of little girls will grow up knowing that women can run for president. But count me as gratified that those who do so will also know they are not responsible for bearing the highest expectations for their gender's morality and politesse, because one hell of a difficult dame has been there before them and knocked everybody around pretty hard.

But the fact that she did it her way, and still managed to break voting records, recalls another lesson of this campaign: that change is, after all, not so hard to come by. It can happen quickly, almost silently. Remember that stage when Clinton was the presumptive candidate for president? It's a stage she's paid for ever since, but what I intend never to forget is the brief moment when her inevitability wasn't questioned, when I could feel free to prefer other candidates because she -- a woman -- was the status quo choice, and no one was batting an eye about her gender. Sure, it's now clear that, all along, people were seething at her presumption, her gall. But we saw in those months what it might feel like to have a woman lead us. We didn't make it real, but we imagined it -- positively or negatively -- with less kicking and screaming than I ever would have thought possible, and that, by itself, is a step. It's change.

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