Democrats are now truly the Mommy Party: Ross Baker
It might have made more sense for Clinton to present herself as a tough and wily power player.
The distinction between the Republicans as the “Daddy” party and the Democrats at the “Mommy” party has been attributed to MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews, who was talking about it as far back as 1991. But it has never been as appropriate as it is now.
The daughterly encomiums lavished on Hillary Clinton by Chelsea in the introduction of her mother dwelt, not surprisingly, on her attentiveness as a parent in spite of her official duties, and her nurturing qualities that now extend to a second generation as she reads bedtime stories to her granddaughter. It’s pretty clear why this emphasis on the former secretary of State’s maternal side is front and center right now. It is an effort to make the candidate appear more likable and to offset her perceived deviousness.
The problem is that it may be at odds with the mood of a country suffering from anxiety over terrorism and relations between Americans of different races that have taken a nasty turn, and presents the Democrats as a kumbaya party at a time when toughness and resolve may need to be projected to reassure voters that they will be safe with them in charge.
At the convention, Clinton did seem to benefit from the words of some unexpected surrogates: the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, a U.S. soldier and Muslim who was killed in Iraq. The Captain’s father, Khizr Khan, took Donald Trump to task for his anti-Muslim statements. This enabled the Democrats to lay claim to both compassion and to support for the military. An unforced error by Trump, who rebuked Captain Khan’s father for muzzling his wife, suggesting that her reticence on stage at the convention was due to anti-female Islamic strictures, seemed to work to Clinton’s advantage. Its effect, however, cannot yet be sorted out from the post-convention bounce that typically follows a nomination.
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Problems with the humanizing of Clinton leave her open to perils that may lie in wait for her down the road. It makes her message vulnerable to any terrorist attack that may erupt between now and election day and might even serve as an unconscious incentive to to fanatics who are no respecters of women. Perhaps, in light of the mood of the country, it would have been better to have Clinton promoted as the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher rather than Carol Brady, the warm and fuzzy mom played by Florence Henderson on the old sitcom The Brady Bunch.
The image of the GOP as the party of national security is pretty firmly implanted in the conventional wisdom, and the Republicans have doubled down on this bet by nominating Trump. His slender national security credentials pale before Clinton’s credibility as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and secretary of State. But he has compensated for that lack with swaggering tough-guy bluster that may be reassuring to certain parts of the electorate fearful of terrorism and civil disorder, and it could work. The Silver Star and a handful of Purple Hearts did not immunize John Kerry in 2004 from the assaults of a tough-talking George W. Bush, who served his military hitch stateside.
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I’m not sure that the effort to make Clinton more likable and trustworthy by burnishing her maternal cred is a sensible strategy. It may have made more sense to capitalize on her perceived remoteness and present her as a tough and wily power player, which is how so many voters seem to see her anyway. Image retrofits are always tricky and hard to pull off, as Vice President Al Gore learned to his dismay in 2000. A helmet-wearing Michael Dukakis in a tank invited ridicule, rather than the hoped-for result that he be seen as a redoubtable warrior rather than a reader of Swedish academic journals. The image that you have may not be the one you’d prefer, but in politics, it may be preferable to a fabricated persona that is simply not believable.
Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of the Board of Contributors of USA TODAY.
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