Kathy G.: How Hillary Clinton is like Richard Nixon (hint: it's not what you think)
In a piece in the current New Republic, historian (and Nixon scholar) David Greenberg takes exception to the notion that Hillary Clinton is "Nixonian":
the charge that Clinton is Nixonian is as scurrilous as the smears that Obama is a closet Muslim or that John McCain sired a bastard child ... Unlike Tricky Dick, Hillary Clinton hasn't tapped her rival's phones or broken into his psychiatrist's office. She hasn't stolen his debate briefing book or convened a mob of rioters to shut down a vote count. She hasn't used the machinery of impeachment for partisan gain. It's been just words.
He's right, of course -- Hillary's run a rough, sometimes nasty campaign, but anyone who smears her as "Nixonian" needs to go back to the history books. Richard Nixon, of course, broke the law, violated the Constitution, and subverted the democratic process. Hillary has never done anything anywhere near as corrupt.
That said, I actually think that Hillary does resemble Richard Nixon in some important respects -- only not in the ways you might think. Hillary actually shares many of Ole Tricky Dick's positive qualities (yes, he did have a few).
Like Nixon, she's by no means a natural politician, but has gotten very far on
the strength of her formidable intellect and her grinding work habits (in law
school, they called Nixon "old Iron Butt" because of similar traits).
Also like Nixon, her political strength to a large degree rests on
being hated by all the right people. Nixon was, and Hillary is, an
outsider who was never quite accepted by the DC establishment
(remember Broder's famous words on the Clintons (I'm quoting from
memory here so I may have mixed it up): "it's not their place"), and
was deeply loathed by the press. Yet both of them rather brilliantly
turned those weaknesses into strengths. Red-baiting aside, Nixon was
never super-conservative, and Hillary, in spite of her image, is not
all that liberal. Yet conservatives loved Tricky Dick, and liberals
love Hillary, because of the shellacking each has taken from (those
who are perceived to be) their ideological opposites.
Each of them rode to power on the strength of a populist,
everyman/everywoman image, and each had a gift for getting their
supporters to
intensely identify with them. There's the Nixon of the Checkers speech,
for example, the all-American middle-class striver crucified
by nasty elites and those meanies in the press. Hillary, similarly, has
an everywoman image: a striver, a hard-working woman trying to make it
in a man's world where she can't catch a break. All that, plus
a hubby with a roving eye -- what modern woman couldn't relate?
Finally, as much as Nixon bitched endlessly about his enemies in the press, he brilliantly controlled them. And Hillary, too, has some pretty mad skillz in the media manipulation department.
Okay, now that I've said some nice things about Hillary, I will add that at this point I don't think she is doing either herself or her party any favors by remaining in the race. And though I trust things will work themselves out and predictions of a bitterly divided party and disaster in November are overblown, I do wish she 'd leave the race after Pennsylvania -- or at least cut out the negative campaigning from here on in.