Why Hillary Really Lost

Enough Americans just could not mentally image the first female president wearing the pants in the family. The first family that is. President, First Gentleman, and children. The Commandress in Chief should wear a dress. Maybe the third, fourth or fifth female president could defy this, but not the first.

Why did Hillary really lose? Pantsuits.

Tradition: Few bachelors have ever been elected president and few divorced people. Few African-Americans in the executive branch as governors. Which is why Obama seldom wears jeans. So why would the voters suddenly pick an untraditionally clothed person? Male candidates wear business suits even when the crowd at a stump speech or a rally is full of blue collar workers wearing jeans or coveralls. A business suit is different from a pantsuit. Female candidates who wear dresses have had a better success rate at being elected than those wearing pantsuits.

Fashion: Don't think anyone pays attention to clothes? Then you have never heard of men losing elections because of poor choice of ties. Nor have you heard recent critiques of Cindy McCain's or Michelle Obama's choices in ready to wear. And Nancy Reagan knew haute couture. Jimmy Carter was excoriated for wearing cardigan sweaters. Are we really surprised at the talk behind Hillary's back? Could no one on her staff tell her? Were they terrified of telling her? We've had eight years of a president who can't stand to hear the truth.

The corporate example: Most, if not all, female presidents of major companies wear business suits. And when female CEO's get fired, are the exceptions who wear pantsuits more likely to get the axe?

Job interview: The primaries, conventions, and fall presidential campaigns of the party nominees are the political equivalent of a job interview. The chance for ordinary Joes and Jo Annes to turn tables on the demanding bosses they have to humor at work every day--metaphorically. To get a job, you have to find work, fill out an application, interview, and maybe undergo a physical exam to enroll in the company health plan and a drug test to satisfy security. A political candidate has to secure a bond and mortgage his or her home to get money for an exploratory committee and campaign funds. They have to fill out paperwork to file as a candidate, to get on the ballot and to possibly get public financing. We all know that the president has to get a physical where the public gets to almost literally look up their arse when pictures of their colon are shown on the nightly news. Considering all the politicians who have been caught using drugs, it is only a matter of time before politicians are made to take random drug tests too. Since we the public know that politicians are public servants and know that they work for us as our overpaid servants, we do notice what they are wearing. A presidential campaign is a job interview. It is not casual Friday.

Law and order: Speaking of casual Friday, is our overly informal culture, our looseness, our permissive society the reason crime is so rampant? President Elects used to wear top hat and tuxedo to be sworn into office. I am not suggesting cause and effect between JFK's going hatless at his inauguration and his assassination. Kennedy was from a society family and understood formality. His brother was a tough Attorney General. But JFK was a philanderer and this set in motion lots of things that should not have been set in motion. He and a mob boss shared interest in the same woman. J. Edgar Hoover spied on the president and hated him. JFK tried to have Castro assassinated. JFK had enemies. You must concede that there are people out there looking for an excuse. Any excuse. Kennedy single-handedly led men to stop wearing hats to work. No hat. Why not ride with the top down? In Dallas in November?

Evangelical Christians: A significant bloc of voters still believes men should wear pants and women should wear skirts. Some even go further and insist on hats (at least for women) and high heels for women. As a side note, Ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic Jews think men should wear hats.

Catholics: Although not a Catholic, as a concession to form, Laura Bush wore a dress for the first time in a long time during the Pope's visit.

Heads of state and government: The Queen of Great Britain wears a dress when she is performing royal duties and often when she is not in public as well. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, wore a dress like most other female prime ministers and presidents around the world.

History: Pantsuits arrived with the Seventies. Prior to 1970, rape and murder rates were lower than afterward. I am not suggesting cause and effect. What I am pointing out is that this was a time of unisex fashions, the sexual revolution, feminism, gay rights, transgender operations, transvestites coming out of the closet, and the population explosion. All the rules were thrown out with the proverbial baby and the bath water.

The social contract:
1. the working class gets good schools and affordable health care, in exchange for working hard for corporations that do not export jobs
2. the middle class gets a strong economy and low inflation (or deflation), in exchange for supporting centrist moderate politics and not taking the upper class to the guillotine
3. the upper class gets to keep its millions and get billions more in exchange for not looking like the hoi polloi and sans culottes and not letting their private lives be the subject of entertainment shows and supermarket tabloids

Celebrities: Even in the entertainment world which has actively promoted drugs, violence, homosexuality, and gambling, the highest paid entertainment reporters wear designer suits and gowns. The paparazzi on the low end of the pay scale wear scruffy clothes.

Science: It is a fact. Men and women are different.

Feminism: If the first female president doesn't even look like a woman, what was it all for? A woman shouldn't have to look like a man and sound like a man to become president. What kind of message does it send to little girls that they need a gender reassignment operation to run for president? The world should accept women as women not as pseudo-men or male wannabes. And the world does accept feminine women. Even in a religion and a region that seems to hate women, Benazir Bhutto was the popular choice for Pakistan. In the Western world, no one has a problem with female bosses at work nor female governors. The argument that men are holding women back is hokum. It was men who voted for female suffrage in the first place just as it was white people who supported LBJ's legislation supporting voting rights for blacks. [Hillary ignored these facts when she blamed men and blacks for her own failures at the polls. After all, women are the majority and whites are the majority.]

Style: Generally speaking, men and women have different styles. This does not mean one is inferior and the other superior just different.

Hispanics: Get used to all this because Latinos understand dress codes even if Anglos don't.


Dear Lord, please help Hillary learn some fashion sense because her fashion statement is off putting to people she's trying to win. If not in the presidential race, then at least in the Senate. As for her supporters, God help them. For this we pray.