The First Woman To Be President

That Different Style

I posted my 337th tweet on April 6th, 2016:

Unexamined assumptions department: a female Presidency will be visually stirring, rhetorically exciting, diplomatically unambiguous.

My point, of course, being that we've always had men as presidents, so we assume that the visually stirring image, the rhetorical thunderclap, and the unambiguous declaration are part of being president, when of course they're not...necessarily.

So what might be stylistic differences that we could expect in a woman president?

Ezra Klein had a long essay in Vox (with accompanying Hillary interview) that raised this topic.  He was trying to reconcile the Hillary that her friends and associates know (funny, at ease, well liked) with the public image of a somewhat uncomfortable politician who has high negatives in public surveys.

Klein came to the conclusion that Hillary's style accentuates the feminine networking that links friends together, as opposed to the masculine focus on status that sends the best to the top.  In other words, the power of positive outreach, rather than the power of comparative striving.

The feminine answer to the projecting of dominance, then, might be to have cabinet officers take on a greater role in dealing with the public.  And, instead of 'talking head' media presentations from the Oval Office that involve citizens watching their leader, a feminine approach might be to have more town hall, roundtable, and panel discussions that showcase cooperation, listening, and attempts at consensus.

Hillary's productive relationships with her fellow senators when she was in the Senate might also suggest a higher priority being given relationships and constructive negotiations with the legislative branch.  

As for outreach to the public, perhaps she'll have fewer press conferences, and instead, once a week, invite everyday Americans to the White House in order to listen to their concerns, to suggest ways government can address their problems, and to give the public a sense of how she governs--all recorded and the video made public.

Personally, I find the ceremonial duties of the presidency to be much too time-consuming for things that could easily be left to underlings.  Hillary's known for her policy expertise, so instead, why not focus on that, and let the pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey fall to the Vice President.

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[8/16/16 update: the remainder of this piece was written prior to her Veep pick,  and can now be skipped]

Extra points from me: if she explains to the American public when announcing her vice presidential pick that the office of president has become so demanding that she'll have an assistant veep, who, with the V.P., will take on most of the ceremonial duties she'd normally perform.  Her Veep team would thus be:

Vice President: ask Joe Biden to stay on for another four years (serving as her legislative bridge-builder)
Assistant Vice President (serving mainly overseas): Julian Castro
In-country Special Assistant: Bill Clinton (for all the schmoozing done in this country)

A lineup like this would emphasize both past experience and set up a veep step up in the future.



  

Taking It Easy

Slow Down and Look Around

I took this photo on July 13th.  It shows what is probably the most exciting place along my work route.  Those are rare native phlox, still with us from when the prairie state was majority prairie (now, sadly, less than 1%).  They bloom in mid July.

When I got home, the electricity went off and stayed off until the minute I got in bed.  So, a lesson: some days are made for reading, reflecting, and stopping to take a picture of what makes you happy.  And do we really need to be on the internet every day?

Elizabeth Warren's Veep Prospects

Newfound Respect

The question I've been mulling recently is: Who'll Hillary pick as her vice presidential candidate?  My list's #4 and #5 (MA senator Elizabeth Warren and VA senator Tim Kaine) made it onto the current short list (along with Julian Castro, currently HUD secretary).

Recently, I read a speech, given by Warren, that changed my feelings about her prospects.

Previously, I'd liked her, but found her prescriptions too simplistic.  For example, she, along with Bernie, were for breaking up too-big-to-fail banks.  I assumed this would be like breaking up Ma Bell into the baby bells--something that happened to the telephone monopoly in the 1970s.  Plus, there'd be a reintroduced Glass-Stegall--separating banks from Wall Street.  The problem with these simple solutions is that there is a much simpler way to do it, which is what we already have.  Impose penalties on any financial institutions that are too big, and watch them do the cutting themselves.  Not cutting enough? Increase the penalties.

So, while I liked Warren and Sander's point, I thought their solutions just weren't elegant enough.

Enter Warren's big picture speech, which laid out the reasons we'd be better off if we followed Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR, and broke up monopolies wherever we found them.  Would this take on income inequality?  Yes.  How about the lack of good jobs?  Yes.  What about making American culture more interesting?  Yes--down with the big box franchise and up with the local, and smaller-scale version.

Except, if this is the answer we've all been waiting for (probably, but how would you break up Facebook and Google?), what's our strategy?  Do we fight, despite the huge monied interests arrayed against us?  Or, is what we might call decentralization the next frontier, after battles over campaign finance, Republican party obstruction, and Obama's legacy?

I sense it's the latter possibility, that Hillary is perfect for those three preliminary battles, and that Warren's decentralization agenda will only be possible afterwards.  Better that Warren nurture the movement from the outside, rather than alarm and embolden Big Business while they can still, probably, get their way.

The other way to look at this, though, is that Hillary is looking to appeal to working people who feel disadvantaged by recent economic change.  What better way to speak to them than with an Elizabeth Warren message that wealth is unevenly and unnaturally distributed due to monopolies and other unfair advantages?

My guess is that Hillary will take things one step at a time, choose a likable, safe, and probably male vice presidential candidate, and focus on winning in '16, which will involve a message that's not so much 'I'm angry and I'm fighting' as 'I'm fair and I'm firm'.