The internet is so cool- me on CNN live from my office
On Elizabeth Edwards and irony
Denise Tanton at BlogHer just sent around this link to Elizabeth Edwards’ new book…“Elizabeth Edwards talks marriage after infidelity.”
I went back and found the link to an interview I did with Mrs. Edwards on BlogHer.com last year, right before the scandal about her husband’s infidelity broke. It’s a good interview- all about Edwards’ pleas for the media to focus less on scandal mongering and more on policy. Ironic. And sad.
The title of the piece? An interview with Elizabeth Edwards: Less Britney, More Family Men
I had the honor of interviewing Elizabeth Edwards last week in Cambridge. I said, “I’m going to interview you for BlogHer.” She said, “thanks for doing that,” and I said “your fan base on BlogHer is beyond” and she said, “these are my people.” So, “people”…
Does the media cover elections as if candidates were Hollywood celebrities, bestowing coverage on who’ll make the best copy and sell most?
Elizabeth Edwards thinks so. When she spoke at Harvard’s Kennedy School last week the thrust of her public address was this: campaign coverage focuses less on substance and more on personality. In a race dominated by two “mega-celebrities,” she used Senator Joe Biden as an example of media slight that created an avalanche of negative effects on one “by any measure a serious candidate.” Biden had but one appearance on the front page of the New York Times. There were more news articles about Elizabeth than about ten of the presidential candidates! The “narrative template” of the media’s choosing was an African American man and a woman. And the media went there, and the result was sky-high ratings for election news.
“Who got to decide this?” she asked about the media’s anointment of certain candidates over others. “Whoever decided this probably also decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate for president.” She pleaded for less Britney Spears, who even graced the Atlantic Monthly’s cover, and more dissection of critical issues like health policy. Instead we get “strobe light” journalism to make the sound bite. You have to craft a “zinger,” she noted. Mrs. Edwards can master the zinger but she is a truly thoughtful person and I wish she were running for president. So much for journalistic objectivity, there, but I’m no journalist.
I wanted to talk to Elizabeth about civic life, since she is a true civic leader, not just a political leader. I asked her, “what happens after Election Day? We’ve seen it before- there’s a huge surge, excitement, people vote and then…what would you say to young progressives about how to keep people involved”?
One of the things that John and I tried…OneCorps. As you’re working, you’re out there, meeting with the other volunteers. We need to think about this post-Election period and where will people turn their energies. Our hope was that people would turn their energies to their communities. We hoped people would turn towards a potential candidate, great potential candidate… say “how can we help them” In particular try thinking about it outside the progressive community- thinking, ‘I’m gonna do an anti-poverty project and I’m gonna go to that Baptist Church and see if they want to do it with us and build the bonds there’…and maybe doing something else that would appeal to another group. People get used to working with one another to make the communities better and stronger. We try to do it through OneCorps, it helps, people feel like they’re part of a bigger network if we have something [formal]. Whoever is the candidate, win or lose, one of the things they should do is build that operation into something that’s more civic-minded. The problem is that the way you do that is you use your email list, and the email list is a commodity that civic organizations are unable to afford. One of the things I want us to be able to do is to donate the list to OneCorps…
Politicians have a political agenda, so it’s important to incorporate those who aren’t running again. But “if people understood their own power and their own ability to change their communities…. It’s especially important if McCain wins the election because he’s against government activity that supports the work of organizations like OneCorps.Let’s talk about why women don’t run for office, and how moms especially can get engaged in civic life so we can start thinking about running?
I think one of the reasons- and not having considered running- or not seriously considered running myself- I think money is really important. EMILY’s list is really important. We are unlikely to have-this is historical- the donor base that men are likely to have. I know we’re used to juggling home and work, and politics is more demanding than most jobs, in terms of the time it’s going to take, at least to do it well. It often also requires being in Washington [DC] away from family, or being in the State Capital. Your family has to be ok with that…The women who are in Washington have launched a move to Washington, particularly the ones with children. Men, it’s much more split. McCain is an example…very often the wives and the children stay at home in the home district or the home state and the official moves to Washington. Women have a much bigger family decision to make.
Me: Is there any solution or is that how it is?
That’s how it is. I think there are just some things we have to say, that’s how it is. ….the way I’d like to improve it is I’d like to see the men to feel the same responsibility! I don’t want it to move in the other direction…I kind of think families ought to live together- that’s one of the things that makes us a family. Certainly as much as our blood makes us a family, living together makes us a family.
I don’t think we feel hesitation anymore whether we can be effective advocates, whether we can be effective candidates. I think it’s lifestyle that keeps us from running [for office]….If we had public financing we’d have a lot more people engaged.
We talked a lot about the effect of money on our elected officials.
There are certain things you wish you could do sort of “candid camera” and we could follow people around congress…to everything…they could go to the bathroom themselves but that’s it. And people couldn’t arrange their schedule…to meet with “Mothers of Dead Soldiers” or things like that all day long. The distance we now have from them, the lack of transparency, we don’t have that connection. We get it back maybe a little bit during campaign season but…
[after Election Day}
“But everyone goes home. I think that’s what it’s gonna be. Even if Obama wins…Hillary has exhibited a toughness that has quieted some people’s concerns that she’s a woman. Obama has appealed to people as this gentle, thoughtful man. People want to see the toughness too.
So I asked her about the role of soaring rhetoric in this election cycle:
“It’s getting people excited and that’s really great. It’s also raising people’s expectations perhaps unrealistically. Jimmy Carter was a really nice man, with a really good heart…but what he didn’t have was the capacity to change the rhetoric of his vision into action. And as a matter of fact, the sort of naïve way in which he had approached it meant he faced even more hurdles than someone who was practiced
What do you think of the whole “bitch is the new black” approach- is that an effective strategy?
“No…I am concerned with the way in which the percentage of women voting for Hillary, the percentage of African Americans voting for Obama, will change. I’m afraid—as many Democrats are—of disaffection in these groups when their candidate is no longer in the race. Because the appeal has been made— not so much by the candidates— but certainly by surrogates and others—this pitch has been made that this is important, for your gender, for your race. In a way it is important for them. But I’m concerned about the disaffection when the candidate is no longer in the race. That’s the real argument for the forced marriage between them, is the possibility of disaffection.
I actually disagree with Elizabeth on this point. I don’t think if Hillary doesn’t win the nomination that women voters will feel disaffected. I think new precedents have been set and the bar’s been moved. Do you? I do wish for a ticket with both Obama and Clinton.
I closed with asking Elizabeth about her civic role in coming years. She said until she can’t make anymore contributions, people will keep hearing from her. I know she said she hasn’t seriously considered running for office but I encourage her to re-think. We need her.
For more recent Elizabeth Edwards news:
Kate Phillips covers Elizabeth’s speech at the Kennedy School, including her fantastically moving answer to the eternal question about criticism about having cancer, young kids, and staying on the campaign trail: New York Times Caucus Blog
Click here to watch Edwards’ public address and Q and A.
Souter wanted his life back
Cross-posted from BlogHer.com:
David Souter is leaving the Supreme Court and it’s exciting to consider whom Obama might appoint as Souter’s replacement. But I’d like to look back for a moment- at why Souter left and what that says to us.
Souter “told friends he looked forward to returning to New Hampshire while he was young enough to enjoy climbing mountains and other outdoor activities.” On NPR, Nina Totenberg reported Souter explaining his discontent: “the workload of his job is such that when ‘the term of court starts I undergo a sort of annual intellectual lobotomy, and it lasts until the following summer when I sort of cram what I can into the summertime.’” For a man to whom reading and thinking is supreme, this is no sort of work life balance.
At Salon, Joan Walsh wrote, “Finally with a Democratic president in the White House, he can go home to New Hampshire.” Walsh’s point is that the putative Republican, faced with a recent stacking of Bush-era mega Conservative appointees, feels safe to leave his spot to a less right-wing replacement. I’m glad Souter waited.
But I was struck by Souter’s justification: he left because he wanted his life back. When powerful people– politicians or corporate executives– leave huge jobs to “spend more time with the family,” we almost automatically assume it’s code for a huge sex scandal in the making or some kind of fraud or looming failure. But a Supreme Court Justice is not subject to the damage of scandal or public pressure; it’s the ultimate tenure. When a Justice leaves, it’s because he or she wants to, or must because of health reasons.
When I suggested that Souter was leaving to seek better integration of work and life, several colleagues wrote back, “but he’s not married and he doesn’t have children.” Indeed, as Brian Williams wrote on his blog, “Souter’s been described as an almost Victorian figure, straining to maintain the lifestyle he prefers while the world changes around him.” Williams is saying that Souter is kind of odd, and that’s why he wanted to escape his extremely powerful but all-consuming job and go home to Vermont. How ridiculous.
This country’s emphasis on work is so insane that we presume only harried parents of young children (usually mothers) want some kind of measure between their work and their personal or home life. That’s ridiculous. Kate Hutchinson writes,
“In my office, women who are single just work their asses off until they have kids, and then comes the work/life balance question.” Really? Single women–or in my case–childless women are just expected to work until they drop? What about time off for reading, yoga, traveling, volunteering, doing things that are personally fulfilling?”
At the Glass Hammer, Cynthia Diaz writes,
“I have been told that putting in extra hours would be expected during a crunch, not a problem. I think everyone has heard that request at one time or another. It is what often follows that is insulting: “After-all, you’re single. You have no responsibilities.” Being single somehow allows my free time to become someone else’s asset.”
But, let’s face it, single women “complaining” is hardly a force for change in our country; usually women voicing objections are discursively constructed to be a force for ridicule. I tried to find some single men writing about the need for more work life integration, but I came up short. Recent studies show men in two earner households feeling more conflict than women about work and life. But it’s still pretty much a taboo subject for many men to discuss publicly, especially during a recession.
The more powerful (and frankly) men we hear from who insist on their right to some kind of integration between their work life and their personal joys the further along we’re going to get. Thank you, Justice Souter. I hope you have a wonderful summer at home.
About Me
Morra Aarons-Mele utilizes social media strategies to help employers, employees and communities connect. She also consults with leading organizations on how women can use the internet for professional and personal development. In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. Read her full bio >>
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