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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


11.07.2006

 

11:35 p.m. Welch-Rainville race

Peter Welch and Martha Rainville have been so busy congratulating themselves on running a clean, civil campaign that I'm tempted to leave the job to them. But, given the nastiness of campaigns across the country, and Richard Tarrant's attack ads here at home, I guess I do need to add my thank you to their self-praise.

Tarrant ran a nasty campaign and lost big. Rainville ran a positive campaign and lost small: Future candidates take note.

I take the two candidates at their word that they ran clean because it was the right thing to do. I'm sure they are sincere. But I do have to point out that running clean was certainly to each candidate's advantage: Snarling attack ads by the Rainville campaign would have damaged her soccer-mom-in-Army-fatigues image, perhaps her most powerful appeal. And what would Welch have gained trying to slime a woman who had become the face of Vermont's National Guard troops serving in Iraq? Whatever Vermonters think about the war (and we certainly know what most of them think), support of the troops has been universal.

Rainville lost because she was a Republican in a year when Vermont voters turned out to vote against President Bush, the Iraq war and the direction of the country. They were happy to put a Republican back in the governor's seat, but they weren't sending any more GOP votes to Washington.

But it's also true she didn't run a perfect campaign. She was very clear on issues like personal integrity, but less clear -- not to say waffling -- on Iraq, on wilderness, on global warming. She spent too many days on the defensive when a campaign staffer was caught plagiarizing issue statements (stealing Hillary Clinton's words!) for her website.

Don't count her out down the road. She ended the race gracefully, her attractive persona intact and, as she said, "looking forward to the future."

-- Candace Page

Comments:
It's funny that male candidates are seldom called 'attractive' but female candidates often are.
 
I, too, see that gender played an interesting role in the race, and with analysis of the race as well. Page describes Rainville's image as a "soccer-mom;" it is interesting that, as a woman, Rainville is defined by parenthood and the expectations of being a "good" mother imposed by societal expectations of the female gender. Certainly male candidates bring their families into campaigns, but do we so often describe them as "fathers"? Or is that simply one aspect of his character, with a greater focus on the actual issues he stands for? I would argue that candidates outside of the societal "norm"-- that is, non-white, non-male, non-christian, non-heterosexual candidates become "the black candidate" or "the female candidate" in which that deviant (to the norm of political candidates) quality becomes, inevitably, the focus of the campaign, the way it is run, the way it is described, and the way the candidate is portrayed. Certainly Tarrant's ads were nasty, false, and unneeded-- he was punished for such criticism. But did Rainville, as a female candidate whose appeal was in part her image as a "soccer mom," a nice, friendly, motherly figure, even have the opportunity to be critical, as such a figure? I think there is much desire in our country to downplay race and gender, in politics. "We live in a world where gender and class no longer matter," etc. But to claim that, as a reason to ignore the fact that Rainville is a woman, or that Obama is black, is to ignore the ways in which sexism and racism are still manifested in infinite ways in our world. It is still, of course, important to vote based on quality of candidate. But it is also important to consider the ways in which race and class (consider the tarrant race) and gender function within the context of a political race.

anna r-g.
 
Interesting post, Anna.

Also interesting to note that in the 20 years that I've been following Bernie Sanders, I can recall one time when anyone has refered to him as "jewish."

(though perhaps people have danced around the issue, when they call him a "cab driver from New Brooklyn" and such things.)

I'm not aware that religious heritage was ever an issue in any of Kunin's elections in Vermont.

Somehow, our Catholic little state pays little attention to this -- which I'm thankfull for (I think.)
 
For one thing, Rainville didn't have the understanding of the campaign topics...nice lady, though. In a way, we are all supporters we're all.... etc.
 
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