I Am Edwards, Hear Me Roar
by Josh Gerstein
Thu, 8 Mar 2007 at 7:45 PM
updated Thu, 8 Mar 2007 at 5:46 PM
My story today about John Edwards's efforts to be as pro-woman as Senator Clinton has stirred up some hornets in the blogosphere and apparently even on the radio.
Media Matters sees the piece as part of a Right-wing conspiracy that involves questioning Edwards's masculinity by calling him the "Breck Girl" and by slurring him with an anti-gay vulgarity, as Ann Coulter notoriously did the other day.
My suggestion that Edward's camp is offering him up as the next woman president was just a colorful way of summarizing Kate Michelman's over-the-top rhetoric about how supportive Edwards is of the female gender.
Emily's list founder Ellen Malcolm told me the tactic of trying to out-woman the woman is one she's seen before when a man is in a Democratic primary fight with a woman. If I was slurring Edwards, then I suppose Toni Morrison was smearing President Clinton when she called him America's first black president. And a piece that quotes Ms. Michelman, Ms. Malcolm, and a NARAL official and no Republicans is sure a strange way of doing the Right's bidding.
At the root of all this, though, are some serious questions about the outer bounds of identity politics and whether a non-minority or non-woman can ever carry the mantle for those groups.
The outcome of the Democratic race could well be dictated by the degree to which women feel free to vote for someone other than Mrs. Clinton and whether African Americans feel free to vote for someone other than Senator Obama. All the Democratic camps know this and have been gently probing at ways to change or solidify those perceived loyalties.
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