Leveling the Playing Field -- Jim Bouton and Carly Fiorina

Those of a certain age will recall a 1970 book titled "Ball Four."  The work of the major-league pitcher Jim Bouton, it was a diary of the 1969 season as told through the eyes of a 30-year-old pitcher past his prime, trying to hang on with an expansion team by throwing a knuckleball.  Bouton's work was scandalous at the time, because it "violated the sanctity of the clubhouse" (even though his teammates pretty much knew he was taking notes to write a book).

Among the vignettes from the book was one wherein a pitcher, Latino if memory serves, takes the mound to face a batter and, as was his custom, crosses himself.  The batter then steps out of the box, crosses himself, and calls out to the pitcher "OK, now we're even with God.  Let's see what you've got!"

The story may have been apocryphal; if I recall correctly, Bouton was just relating something he had seen or heard from someone else, about an incident from a previous season, one of those many tales from a clubhouse of guys doing what guys do.  But it stayed with me for a long time, and it resonated this week.

A few days back, Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy for the presidency, with a video and a series of interviews.  I will say that I liked her a lot.  Desperate as I am for someone who will come in to office, take office, take over and lead the country, specifically in a way that I can get behind, I certainly liked much of what she had to say.

Carly Fiorina differs from the other candidates for the GOP nomination in one rather evident manner; she does not have a Y-chromosome. That, in and of itself, is not a handicap in seeking the nomination; she has plenty of other handicaps, beginning with name recognition (her career has been in business, not politics, although Hewlett-Packard, the company she ran as CEO, is certainly a household name).

She also has to face a very crowded Republican candidate pool, although with no clear favorite.  At this point, any of a dozen announced and unannounced candidates could end up with the nomination if their candidacy were somehow to get an early boost to distinguish theirs from the rest.

Now, I can guarantee you that I'll be supporting, writing good things about, and voting for whichever of them gets the nomination.  As I wrote in my very first essay here so many months ago, I'm voting for the person whose views on enough issues align with mine.  And that is not going to be Hillary Clinton.

But I digress.

That story in Ball Four is actually really applicable here.  I think of the pitcher crossing himself on the mound, and I instantly think of Hillary Clinton.  Instead of making the sign of the cross, she waves her uterus around with #grandmothersknowbest hashtags, as if what's left of her female hormones are more relevant to her candidacy than, say, her incompetence as Secretary of State.

I think of Carly Fiorina running against Hillary, and I think of that batter at the plate calling time, crossing himself and negating the pitcher's presumed theological advantage.

"OK, Hillary, I can match you in uteri.  Now let's talk about how you screwed up Benghazi, and why you erased all those emails and didn't use a government address, and how you thought it was OK for your lawyers to decide what the American people who paid your salary at State would be allowed to see, and how your family Foundation took money from countries and people with matters on the table while you were at State but thought that was OK."

There's still a lot of time before the GOP field starts narrowing down; a lot of time before the additions stop and the subtractions begin.  We've a lot to learn about the positions that could distinguish the candidates, about their personalities, about their visions and ideas and ideals.

Carly Fiorina has a very interesting distinction, and it's not chromosomal -- her interactions with foreign governments have been extensive, certainly.  But they're economic -- talking to the Putins of the world about business as opposed to just politics, a very different medium for discussion.  It is quite one thing to talk about demilitarizing Ukraine when you have created your personal relationship on economic development; quite another to try to create economic relationships when you've been already introduced as geopolitical and military opponents.

If indeed Mrs. Fiorina were to win the nomination, it would defuse Hillary Clinton's claim to gender-based entitlement in the snap of a finger.  "OK, Hillary, we're both women. You crossed yourself, but I can do that too.  Gender no longer matters; let's talk abut the issues."

I hope that Jim Bouton gets to read this.  I know he's fairly left of me, but I loved his books way back when, and I hope he gets a kick out of having one of his vignettes remembered.  It was a great metaphor for the 2016 campaign.

Plus I got to write "uteri."  You really have to work to do that.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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