Hillary and the "Man" Factor

I think we may be seeing a battle royal between the sexes shaping up in the presidential race. The first battle will be between Hillary Clinton and the wimpy boys that make up the Dem nominees. Secondly will come the battle between her and whoever the GOP puts up. Hopefully the GOP candidate will have more testosterone than she does.

Camile Paglia gives a little background on Hillary's general disdain for masculinity:

A swarm of biographers in miners' gear has tried to plumb the inky depths of Hillary Rodham Clinton's warren-riddled psyche. My metaphor is drawn (as Oscar Wilde's prim Miss Prism would say) from the Scranton coalfields, to which came the Welsh family that produced Hillary's harsh, domineering father.

Hillary's feckless, loutish brothers (who are kept at arm's length by her operation) took the brunt of Hugh Rodham's abuse in their genteel but claustrophobic home. Hillary is the barracuda who fought for dominance at their expense. Flashes of that ruthless old family drama have come out repeatedly in this campaign, as when Hillary could barely conceal her sneers at her fellow debaters onstage -- the wimpy, cringing brothers at the dinner table.

Hillary's willingness to tolerate Bill's compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men. She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them. Following the pattern of her long-suffering mother, she thinks it is her mission to endure every insult and personal degradation for a higher cause -- which, unlike her self-sacrificing mother, she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.

It's no coincidence that Hillary's staff has always consisted mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys forming an adjunct brain trust. Hillary's rumored hostility to uniformed military men and some Secret Service agents early in the first Clinton presidency probably belongs to this pattern. And let's not forget Hillary, the governor's wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock.

Hillary's disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip. Steinem's fawning, gaseous New York Times op-ed about her pal Hillary this week speaks volumes about the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment, which has blessedly fallen off the cultural map in the 21st century. History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary.

Many are now pointing to the "crying game" moment on Monday as the point in time where Hillary suddenly connected with women voters, and many of us wonder if that moment was scripted. Given that she was asked an almost identical question on "Access Hollywood" the day before and didn't show any noticeable emotion, I'm leaning toward "yes".

Patrick Ruffini thinks that moment may have had some impact, but the real impact came during a rally the night before the election:

Lost in all the commentary about the crying game was another pivotal moment -- perhaps the pivotal moment -- in Hillary Clinton's turnaround: two unidentified men yelling "Iron my shirt!" at the candidate the night before the election. ...

The Clintons aren't stupid. They know this stuff is out there. They also know how women are likely to react to it when it's brought to light. I suspect they also know that simply welling up is not going to generate the same kind of visceral reaction with their target audience as showcasing the uglier responses to a female candidate.

The Clinton strategy since the beginning has been to embrace Hillary's feminine side, not run away from it (Ann Lewis has probably given about 37 on-the-record interviews to this effect). This is the candidate who opened the campaign by saying "Let's chat." Who pushed this envelope a bit too far after the Philly debate. The strategy is not to bottle up the woman factor, and hoping to embrace it to tap into the raw power of 56-60% of the Democratic electorate that are women.

So when those guys hoisted the "Iron my shirt" signs, Clinton had an answer already teed up: "Ah, the remnants of sexism, alive and well."

I don't deny that sexist sentiment against HRC exists. I've seen it in more places than I'd like to online. But does anyone else find it convenient that this only surfaced the day before the New Hampshire primary, with the campaign in well-documented desperate straights, in the middle of a bid to humanize (and feminize) the candidate? In a way that perfectly contextualized the vulnerability ("some of us... put ourselves out there...") HRC displayed earlier that day?

The guys that held up the sign were radio station pranksters who have done that before, but they may have unwittingly turned the election around and propelled Hillary to the presidency. You can bet the Clinton campaign will now play the sexism card every chance they get.

Oh, and I have a prediction. If Hillary loses the nomination or the general election, she and Bill will begin divorce proceedings within a year. She won't need him any longer.