It was bittersweet, they say, electing a black man over a woman in 2008.
Hillary Clinton backers lined up behind Barack Obama and found comfort in shattering one glass ceiling in the White House.
It had taken more than 50 years since African-Americans achieved voting protections through the Civil Rights Act to elect a president of color. Will it take women twice as long?
In the latest in a series of discussions with likely voters before the Ohio primary on March 15, the Beacon Journal listened to six Hillary Clinton fans, including five women who balanced gender and race as they recalled the last time they considered voting for the former first lady.
As Clinton won Ohio but lost the nomination in 2008, her supporters remember the mounting emotional, physical and financial tolls of six years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Adding to the anxiety were hastily enacted bailouts for banks and auto companies.
Some Clinton fans, some too young to vote then, settled on the change that Obama promised. Clinton’s more seasoned supporters say now, as they did then, that her experience is superior to any of her opponent’s popular appeal.
This time, it’s the less idealistic — and perhaps charismatic — of the two candidates the group thinks is best suited to make the backroom deals and conciliatory handshakes necessary to move the country forward.
While they see hope and change in U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, they figure he has as good a chance of working with Congress as Obama had.
Race vs. gender
The group painstakingly dissected its 2008 pick.
“It was almost tragic to see Hillary there at the same time,” said Katriel Israel, 33, a construction worker from Akron. A black man, Israel said it was a tough decision. But Obama’s story as a community organizer spoke personally to him.
“I was very torn,” Israel said. “But as a young voter at that time, I didn’t have enough experience to know who Hillary Clinton was.”
Females in the room split: the younger women supported the dynamic Obama while the older woman voted for the better-known Clinton.
“I think that racial inequality felt like a much more pressing issue than gender inequality in today’s society,” said a female in her 20s, who wished to remain anonymous because of her city job.
But the room was not quick to discount gender inequality, as Bailey Sandin, 20, would attest.
“I obviously wasn’t old enough to vote in 2008,” said Sandin, now a political science major at the University of Akron. “But I remember thinking it was weird that a woman was running for president. I didn’t think that was something that would even go on in politics.”
The voices who remember when abortion and contraception were illegal recalled their stalwart support for Clinton.
“For me, being the oldest female in the room, having a woman president was beyond what I thought I would ever see,” said Kathy Harris, 57. “I just didn’t think that would be a possibility. I grew up in the ’70s and, believe me, we were not looked upon as equal in society.
“To this day, I feel that sense of excitement,” Harris continued. “Let’s listen to a women’s voice. What ideas and compassion can she bring to governing?”
An easier choice
The group mulled their upcoming decision: Clinton or Sanders, a socialist senator from Vermont or a former senator from New York whose evocative last name they couldn’t quite place as an asset or a hindrance.
Some drew parallels to 2008. Like Obama, Sanders is the outsider. Without Clinton’s command of the establishment, Sanders trails far behind in the delegate count, thanks to super delegates pledged early on to Clinton.
Still, they like Sanders’ big ideas. If electing a king, many would pick him.
But they worry that he’s too idealistic to govern. They prefer Clinton’s familiarity with Beltway politics.
Compared to Obama, they see far less enthusiasm for Clinton, especially among woman and young voters. But after six years of dealing with an obstructionist Congress, they feel Clinton knows what to say behind closed doors to get the job done.
“I think this primary comes down to: Do you want practicality or do you want ideology? It’s not necessarily that one candidate is better than the other,” Sandin said. “It’s just that Sanders is much more ideological.”
An engineer who works with clients in Washington, D.C., and did not want to be named said Sanders will shoot for 100 percent of his goals and get nothing. She, and the rest of the supporters, would rather settle for the pragmatism of 80 percent than another six years of political stalemate.
Harsh words
Clinton, in private and public dealings, has been a magnet for criticism.
Sanders’ success in attacking Wall Street banks has added renewed pressure for Clinton to release transcripts for paid speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs.
As the former U.S. secretary of state, she’s being investigated for using a private server and cellphone to store and transfer sensitive emails. A U.S. embassy attack in Benghazi while she led the state department has been the subject of routine congressional inquiries for four years.
For these and so many more reasons, Republicans have labeled Clinton harshly, calling her a liar and criminal. Clinton’s supporters are used to such barbs, which they say no man would suffer and are merely political hyperbole.
“They go to the emails, they go to Benghazi …,” said Harris, who traces a lot of the criticism back to Republican strategist Karl Rove and the negative advertising his Super PAC has launched against the Clintons over the years.
“They kept referencing these ads over a period of years to constantly discredit Hillary over and over and over,” Harris said. “And you know, if you repeat something long enough with enough conviction — I mean look at Trump — people believe it.”
Then there’s the double standard of being a woman in power and running for the most powerful position in the free world. The criticism cuts both ways.
“There’s the innuendo that she’s not female enough. That she’s too aggressive. That she’s too manly,” said the engineer, one of the first women to work in her office.
“If she wasn’t aggressive or assertive, she wouldn’t be running for president,” Harris said.
The group explained how such characteristics play positively for Donald Trump but badly for Clinton.
Trump’s crazy train
There’s little that Clinton supporters find more disturbing than what Trump says, except that the media repeat it and his followers believe it.
“I think he’s totally just feeding into just how racist and awful this country really is. I really do,” said the marketing specialist. “He’s saying out loud things that people have been dying to say for years. And that’s terrifying.”
They’ve been trying to dismiss Trump’s tone and rhetoric, but his position in the Republican race makes him the likely challenger to the Democratic nominee, who looks to be Clinton at this stage in the game.
“People like us are saying, ‘He’s just on a crazy train with these people.’ But those people are with him,” Harris said.
Sandin said: “And I think there are so many people on that crazy train that the media realizes they can make money off of this. And they’re riding him like a cash cow. It’s not, ‘Hey, we should be afraid of this guy becoming the president of the United States.’ It’s ‘I can make a lot of money off this headline so even though there might be serious political repercussions way down the road, I’m going to milk this for all it’s worth.’ ”
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.