Should we admire Senator Clinton for refusing to withdraw, even when her chances seem hopeless? The best defense I have seen was published recently by Richard Cohen. Here's the part where the pipes and drums are playing:
Let me suggest that pride, honor and a sort of unforgiving toughness are not male or female qualities. They are the qualities of leaders. It's hard to imagine Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir or Indira Gandhi doing a Tammy Wynette -- standin' by their man. They might well have done so, but the reason we have a difficult time picturing such a thing is because they had leadership qualities that, whether male or female, suggest otherwise.
Hillary Clinton is now exhibiting those leadership qualities. In rejecting the chorus of demands that she get out of the race, she is acting as any leader would. Take a tour of statues throughout the world, and while you will find plenty of historical figures who lost battles, you will find none to "A Gracious Loser." As Vince Lombardi or Leo Durocher -- both famous for mythical statements about winning and losing -- could have told you, there is no such thing. You lose hard. You lose tough. You lose only when you are beat.
In the end, no one begrudges a bitter-ender. Robert E. Lee is not vilified because he fought on too long, wasting lives and all of it, mind you, in the cause of slavery. In Israel, Masada is venerated because the zealots held out and killed themselves rather than surrender. Thermopylae is not considered a defeat but a lesson to us all: Never give up! This is precisely what Hillary Clinton is doing.
I think that is mostly well-said. For all Senator Clinton's faults (and that is a long list), she did the hard work of politics in a republic. She played on her fame as first lady, as well she should have done, to win a Senate seat and the defend it. She played both the fame and the seat to win about half the votes in this year's Democratic nomination contest. There is greatness in that, to be sure.
But Cohen is wrong to say that no one ever "begrudges a bitter-ender." Ask a lot of Democrats what they think about Ralph Nader, without whom George W. would surely not have become President. Nader split the Democratic Party during the general election. Ms. Clinton will not do that, but only because the damage is already done. By staying in so long, she has turned a potential split in her party into an actual one, with all the loose nerve ends dangling nation wide. No one can know yet whether this will matter in November, but it surely might matter.
Senator Clinton might have withdrawn much earlier, when it was clear that the math was against her. She might have done so for the good of her party and, presumably, for the good of the Republic. Maybe we would never have admired her for that in the way that Robert E. Lee is admired by many, but sometimes the heroic thing to do is precisely the thing that will not win immortal fame. I note that some of us admire Robert E. Lee most for his decision to surrender, when many a Johnny Reb wanted to fight on as guerrillas in the central highlands.
Of course, the American Republic has rarely relied upon heroic actions at the level of Presidential leadership. The job of Presidential candidates is to build coalitions, for that is the only way that the popular will can become effective. The rough half of Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton probably think they have a right to half the say in the outcomes. They won't get it.
I have argued that Senator Clinton is playing for 2012. That is a very doubtful game. If Obama loses in November (and I am not predicting this), she will say: you should have nominated me. But a lot of Democrats will look back on her tenacity as the thing that cost them victory. Senator Clinton has earned her place in history. I think she will never be President.
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