Wednesday, December 05, 2007

"Hillary"

The national media are finally talking about an issue that's been bugging me for years.
In Michigan, we have a female governor named Jennifer Granholm. During the last election her detractors spouted about not voting for "Jenny" because DeVos had better plans for the state.

When we are troubled by politicians we refer to them by their first names in a blatant sign of disrespect: "Tricky Dick" Nixon immediately comes to mind. In this particular administration, those less enthusiastically "hailing the chief" add a W to differentiate from daddy George.

And now here comes Hillary. She's not my top pick for the Democratic ticket - not that the party cares about what any of the renegades in Michigan think. I guess I'll have to come to terms with the fact that someday a granddaughter might ask what it was like when the first woman president was elected and I'll try not to roll my eyes and effusively proclaim that we missed our chance for real change in the presidency with a white Southern Male (Dear John Edwards? I know I'm from a state that will have no delegates at the convention, but still... you, me, grilled cheese?)... Anyhow my point... there's one here somewhere...

Hillary. Really? Her campaign is doing this themselves: banners, buttons, bumperstickers... all spalshed with one word Hillary. Maybe to differentiate from Bill Clinton, but okay, "welcome to the mideast peace talks, President Hillary will be joining us shortly..."? Or is she leaning to heavily on the maybe female voters will notice the "I'm a woman too" thing? One can only imagine the Hillary special edition Barbie advertised to help little girls dream that someday they too can be president. Cute.

I know this is a self-styled thing, but I heard a professional journalist refer to the field as Obama, Hillary and Edwards. Grrrr... Respect in parallels, please?

One could argue Rudy is doing this too... maybe it's a New York thing?

Here is a link to the On the Media segment that played on NPR on Friday, along with some thoughtful comments.

Thoughts?

3 comments:

Em said...

Even worse?

"Billary"...not only do we have Bennifer, but now we have Billary too.

JT said...

I thought that this was a good catch During the Michigan race, and it still applies. Respect-

Anonymous said...

My thoughts? I hate politics. ~B