July 8, 2013

"If Secretary Clinton runs, she’ll be the nominee — the first female nominee of either party."

"That breaks through the ‘old’ tagline that the Republican geniuses are cooking up because, if handled correctly, women of all ages will absolutely be inspired by that. I don’t recommend that be the totality of her message or platform, but there’s no way to hide that fact and it certainly shouldn’t be discounted."

So says Stephanie Cutter, the political consultant and former Obama adviser.

In the past, it's been said — notably by Rush Limbaugh — that Hillary as a female candidate will have special problems looking old. Cutter is flipping that around: Being female is such a positive factor that it will overshadow the oldness. She might even be suggesting that oldness is less problematic for a woman, because there are so many women out there who will be inspired to see an old woman out there still fighting, still in the game.

3 comments:

Meade said...

from Matthew Sablan:

Some things never change

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/09/018580.php

Meade said...

from Mickey:

Regarding Clinton being the nominee, I think her age actually gives her an advantage optically against a younger candidate like Rand Paul. It could give her a lot of sympathy from people saying, "look just give her a chance of already, I mean look at her, she may not get another one!" They may look at Rand Paul and think that he'll have plenty of chances to run for president, but who knows when the country will have another opportunity to have a female president.

Not that those are valid selection criteria for president. That might just be how a lot of Americans see it, though.

Meade said...

from Truckee Man:

The problem for Hillary is that her gender is the only thing she has going for her. Without Bill she would be doing wills and divorces in Illinois.
At least Obama had charm, rhetoric and good advisors in addition to his novel status. Hillary has none of that, only a lot of failures and scandals to weigh her down.
Both are complete incompetents who have failed at anything they have done, Remember Hillary got fired for ethics violations when she worked for the Watergate Committee.