Carleton students met Senator Hillary Clinton while volunteering on her campaign.
The battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination marked the first time in the United States’ 232-year history that the Democratic presidential candidate would not be a white man. When Clinton announced the end of her pioneering campaign on June 7, she had set a new threshold for women. In her speech, she said, “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time…it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before.”
“What we saw with Hillary and Obama was a fight within the Democratic party that has been playing out since the 1960s,” says Melissa Haussman, MA/84, an associate professor in the department of political science. She decided that watching history happen, and teaching about it, weren’t enough. Before the winter term at Carleton started, she headed to New Hampshire to work on the Clinton campaign’s first primary. Having researched and published on gender and politics issues in North America since the 1980s, Haussman knew she would regret it if she didn’t get involved.
“The U.S. hasn’t delivered on its rhetoric of equality,” says Haussman. “This was the first time that the face of U.S. presidential politics might look different. Hillary was the first credible woman with a chance at being elected president.”
When she returned to the classroom and shared her campaign experience with her students, Haussman’s enthusiasm was contagious. She was approached by students eager to contribute to the campaign, and arranged for six to travel with her to Boston, Mass., in advance of Super Tuesday. Working the phones at Clinton headquarters and doing “visibility events” brought students face-to-face with American voters’ political opinions and reactions—and politicians themselves. Among others, the students met Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (chair of the Obama campaign), Massachusetts’ superdelegates and Democratic committee members, and Clinton, who shook hands with the Canadian contingent working on her behalf.
“The experience provided an amazing reference point for them for the semester. The students had a real life experience by which to test theories and data from the classroom,” says Haussman, who regards the campaign as an invaluable opportunity for education about how the U.S. political system works and imposes greater barriers on socially-marginalized groups.
“The rules for who gets to power and who stays there are affected by things like the cost of running for office doubling with every presidential election. Incarcerated people can’t vote in the U.S., which means that 13 per cent of the black adult male population has no vote,” says Haussman. “Two-thirds of the superdelegates, current or former party leaders and elected officials automatically included in the presidential nomination vote, are men. The history of exclusion has its effects in the current contest and must be overcome.”
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