Blue Crab Boulevard

Damsel In Debate

Ruth Marcus, who is apparently rather fond of Hillary Clinton in general, is not at all pleased with Hillary's damsel in distress posturing after the last debate. She calls it disappointing.

McEntee's remarks echoed the "piling on" theme the Clinton campaign adopted after Tuesday's debate in Philadelphia in which Clinton was pummeled by her competitors. The campaign was careful not to say so directly, at least not on the record, but the not-so-subtle implication was that a gang of mean, mean men was beating up on the only woman in the race.

"She is one strong woman. She came through it well. But Hillary's going to need your help," the Clinton campaign told supporters in a fundraising e-mail.

The Hill newspaper, listening in on a conference call with Clinton fundraisers, quoted chief strategist Mark Penn being even more explicit about the "backlash" he was detecting among female voters: "Those female voters are saying, 'Sen. Clinton needs our support now more than ever if we're going to see this six-on-one to try to bring her down.' "

Please. The Philadelphia debate was not exactly a mob moment to trigger the Violence Against Women Act; if anything, this has been an overly (pardon the phrase) gentlemanly campaign to date. Those other guys were beating up on Clinton, if you can call that beating up, because she is the strong front-runner, not because she is a weak woman.

And a candidate as strong as Clinton doesn't need to play the woman-as-victim card, not even in "the all-boys club of presidential politics," as Clinton called it in a speech yesterday at her all-women alma mater, Wellesley College. I have a pretty good nose for sexism, and what I detected in the air from Philadelphia was not sexism but the desperation of candidates confronting a front-runner who happens to be a woman.

Gerard Baker, linked in my last post, also pointed out the same things. I actually think this is a bad strategy for Clinton. If she projects an image of being too delicate to handle verbal barbs in a debate, how would she do as president when a real enemy of the US acts up? Marcus says this whole act is unnecessary, I'd agree with that and add that it may also work against Clinton in the long run.

Politics | Gaius Friday, 2 November , 2007

By sam, Friday, 2 November , 2007 @ 12:04 pm

So how does the “damsel in distress” idea square with the remark I read that Hillary is the most masculine of the Democratic candidates?
By Marybel, Friday, 2 November , 2007 @ 12:06 pm

Hillary rode Bill’s success to power, swallowing her pride (before and after Lewinski) because he “owed” her his aid in her own rise. Women endure that kind of public humiliation only to achieve some less obvious goal. Expediently in 1991, when the idea of a co-presidency tanked, she quickly backed off, donned her headband, became the docile wifey-poo, and showed forever the depth of her duplicity. Am I the only woman who remembers this?

With this latest “boo-hoo, the bad ol’ meanies are picking on me” stance, Hillary has set back the cause of feminism at least a half generation. As a successful woman, who has competed with and honestly bested the men in my field without resorting to gender victimology, how could I ever admire, much less vote for her? Hillary’s utter duplicity is staggering.

Where is our American Maggie Thatcher? Now THAT would be a figure worthy of my support! Hillary is an easily threatened, woosy, shell, who, when backed into a corner, comes across as victimized and entitled to being treated as a fragile girl.

If she can’t run with the big dogs, she needs to stay on the porch.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Friday, 2 November , 2007 @ 2:34 pm

It may be a bad strategy, Gaius, but it is too deeply ingrained into her political DNA for her to stop now. Hilly really does regard all criticism as some sort of “vast right wing conspiracy”. Just imagine what she will do once she adds the Justice Department, the FBI, and the CIA to the famed Clinton mud machine - and with the MSM to protect her back as a bonus! The Clinton I administration made Richard Nixon look like a saint by comparison, and one can be sure that a Clinton II administration would out-do even that frightning standard.
By mockinbird, Friday, 2 November , 2007 @ 2:46 pm

I have never heard her say anything critical about left wing thoughts, ideas or persons.
It always is about the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.