Myra MacPherson: Molly Ivins, Elvis and Obama
Posted at 5:22 pm, February 13th, 2008
In December 2006, the ever-prescient columnist and best-selling author Molly Ivins was asked whether or not Barack Obama should run for president. Her answer: “Yes, he should run. He’s the only Democrat with any ‘Elvis’ to him.”
The month before, I was sitting with Molly in the Texas State Capitol listening to Obama address an early-morning crowd attending the Texas Book Fair. I did not see any “Elvis” that day. I felt the speech was lackluster, as if the young senator who had written so poetic an autobiography was marking time on his path to something else, content with platitudes.
At one point he said something about the need for decency in government. It was a simple, quiet thought but it drew mild applause. Molly scribbled a note to me that said, in effect, we were in for a new time if an old-fashioned word like decency could draw applause.
And we were in for a new time. Sitting out there in Austin, away from the Beltway bloviators, dying of cancer, Molly Ivins nailed it better than anybody. Elvis began appearing in Obama the candidate and last night, before a crowd of 17,000 in Madison, Wisconsin, he victoriously thundered his most populist speech to date: “This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up. This is the new American majority!” He hasn’t gotten John Edwards’s endorsement as of yet, but Obama has borrowed the former candidate’s themes, hammering home on the economy far more than in earlier speeches, vowing to fight for the disenfranchised and middle Americans who do not run things from the Capitol. Although he himself has been one of those running things in the Capitol since 2005, Obama has been able to cast himself as a new voice in their midst.
As far back as January 2006 — almost a year before her Elvis-Obama comment — Molly shocked women readers and friends and Clintonites by writing that no matter who ran she would not support Hillary. “Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone.” Clinton’s inability to take a “clear stand on the war in Iraq” was enough to disqualify her, in Molly’s eyes. And her failure to speak out on the Terri Schiavo comatose case was another reason.
Molly prophesied the kind of following Obama would get and early on pointed out Clinton’s vulnerabilities. Then the best columnist I ever knew died — a year and two weeks ago. The race was beginning to heat up, but Hillary remained way ahead in poll after poll after poll and in the minds of the pundits.
I wonder what Molly would be saying now. Whatever it would be, I am among the thousands who miss that marvelous voice of opinion that most always often got it right.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am |
Thanks for reminding the world that Molly Ivins was an exceptional columnists.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:04 am |
Great post; thank you. I feel a bit more rational for being unable to support Clinton. I never met Ivins, but I think about her a lot and wish she and Ann Richards both were still around to cut through all the Clintonesque obfuscation with laughter.
February 19th, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
Thanks for remembering Molly. I sure miss her and I especially miss her in this campaign season. I also remember her column about why she would be unable to support Clinton. I’ve thought of it frequently during this primary season. And you are right–she always got it right.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:43 pm |
Funny you should write this.
I found this website today when I was googling Molly Ivins, Hillary and Obama. You see I loved Molly Ivins columns which we sometimes got in our paper and I wondered what she had written about Hillary. Well I certainly found out!
She has helped me decide who to vote for in the PA primary. This will be one time when the party race is not decided before we even get a chance to vote around here.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 am |
I’m not sure how I found this web site, but so glad I did. I felt a fresh kind of peace rush over me when I read the ‘vision’ of Molly on Clinton.
Being of Social Security age I have found myself questioning ME, this always independent “woman”, for the rationale that I have for supporting Barack over Hillary – the woman. Wonderful to read, but not surprising, that Molly had understood long before the campaign had begun. Molly how I miss you girl.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:12 pm |
As a long-time fan of Molly Ivins, there’s a part of me that still searches for her commentary. Can’t quite get used to the world without her…
February 29th, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
I too, surely miss Molly Ivins, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine a sane person wanting Elvis in the White House. Again, that is. Last time Elvis was in the White House, he was a guest of Richard Nixon, who invited Elvis to praise his decision to become a narc, not that this slowed down Presley’s dope intake in the slightest.
I would also hope that, were she still alive, she would by now have noticed Obama’s reluctance to take policy stands is every bit as pervasive as Clinton’s. I was (am?) an Edwards man – I’ll support either O. or C. in the election, but they both leave me hungry for more.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:22 pm |
Molly sure did have a way of reading between the lines. How I wish she was here to see this one go down.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm |
I have had Molly’s column posted by my desk since it ran. For those of us who miss her, some of her books are still available. As a 60′s on fighting feminist(as was Molly) it wasn’t easy to not vote for Hillary, but we worked too hard to be taken for granted by a woman who has become a none supporter of most of the ideas I believe in. She went over to the dark side. Sad, but we will have to try again later.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:48 pm |
Thank you Ms. MacPherson for sharing memories of Molly Ivins and her thoughts on Obama and Hillary.
Like a few others, I found this site by doing a search on Ivins and Obama. It says a great deal about a woman who still influences us even after her passing. I, too, miss her commentaries, as she always seemed to frame situations in a way that was honest and fresh…and amusing.
Diane, I hope that there are many people in PA who feel as you do and will vote for Obama. Edith, you stated it well…Hillary is not entitled to the women’s vote simply because she is a woman.
September 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm |
Manual trackback from Barack Obama: That Don’t Impress Me Much, University Blog
October 18th, 2008 at 3:25 am |
It’s Saturday morning, the day Molly’s column used to run, and I still look forward to reading it until I remember that there will be no more columns. I wondered what she would think of the present race, though, and was pleased to find the answer here.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:50 pm |
God I miss her.
March 7th, 2011 at 1:09 pm |
DEAR ELLIOT, it’s great that you found this blog, filled with fine writers. Unfortunately, it seems that the very negatives Molly attributed to Hillary could now be said of Obama. “Enough triangulation, calculation, equivocation.” Campaign populist rhetoric pumps up the troops, but it seems that inaction, and cozyng up to those who will never support you has been the tragedy of this administration so far. There are no populists on Wall Street and only fake ones in politics in most instances. Thanks so much for the compliment but I am taking time to write a book so may not be yammering here for a while. All best, Myra,