Ken Berwitz
What would you think of a male presidential candidate who continually told men they should vote for him because he is a man? Not much, I\’m surmising.
Do you think it would be different for a woman candidate? Especially given the fact that there never has been a woman President?
Well, as Hillary Clinton is finding out, for a lot of women the answer, apparently, is no,
On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton\’squest to become the country\’s first female president has encountered anunexpected problem: She is having trouble persuading women, young and old, torally behind her cause.
The latest sign came Sunday, when a new CNN-WMUR survey hereshowed Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont beating Clinton among women by eightpercentage points – which represents a big shift from the results last week inthe Iowa caucuses, where Clinton won women by 11 points.
The survey followed unintentionally problematic commentsover the weekend by Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem, older trailblazerswho were trying to encourage younger women to support Clinton.
Steinem apologized Sunday for saying on a TV appearanceFriday night that younger women were supporting Sanders because “the boys arewith Bernie.” On Saturday, Albright drew criticism for saying that “there\’s aspecial place in hell for women who don\’t help each other,” even though she hasexpressed that sentiment many times before.
Why is this happening? I can\’t say for 100% sure, but I would very much like to think it is because, generally speaking, women are much more interested in a candidate\’s record, capabilities and positions on issues than his or her plumbing.
Hillary Clinton has a 30 year history remarkably free of any discernible accomplishments (unless you count slogans like “she fought for” this, or “she championed” that to mean anything). She had a four year stint as Secretary of State in which her two most well known “accomplishments” were using a personal server, thus giving our enemies a four year review of classified documents relating to foreign policy, and her disastrous incompetence, then lies, about Benghazi. Plus, she has a set of positions that seem to move with wherever the most votes….and money…are located.
Call me a dreamer, but I suspect that when women look at this record, then hear Ms. Clinton and her allies tell them that womanhood supersedes everything else, a great many are turned off rather than turned on.
And that, of course, is before we get to the exhortations of 78 year old Madeleine Albright and 81 year old Gloria Steinem, who most of today\’s women, if they even know who Albright and Steinem are, consider them historic figures they may have read about in a textbook.
People like Ms. Albright and Ms. Steinem coming out in support of Hillary Clinton has all the impact of Bob Dole coming out in support of Jeb Bush. None.
I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton\’s campaign is in trouble. Big trouble. And if Ms. Clinton thinks that continuing to sell herself by gender with the help of blasts from the past like Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem is going to help, she\’s in even bigger trouble than I thought.
