How did they expect Hillary to respond? Speaking of double talk...let's think about the double standard. No male candidate has ever had to speak on his gender. I think it will benefit Hillary for responding to the issue. Hell, if nothing else, it just gives her more publicity.
She should play it up, use it for what it is worth. I think she is being smart about it. Especially to alluding to the male adage that a woman's place is in the kitchen. She is giving everyone a little bit of what they want to hear. And in the mean time, she is getting talk time and air time. Stirring up controversy. Isnt that what politics is all about.
Needless to say, this is just another example of how far behind the United States actually is. Growing up, I thought we were untouchable. Really we are just a country with a strong arm and that comes from money. It is not our policies or views on the world, society, etc. that make us the "leader of the free world."
Clinton takes on gender issue
Opponents accuse her of double talk
By Jill Zuckman | Tribune national correspondent
November 3, 2007
CONCORD, N.H. - Sen. Hillary Clinton found herself under fire Friday for injecting gender into the presidential campaign as Democratic and Republican opponents blistered her for parsing her words, engaging in secrecy and blaming the male candidates for the controversy.
Even as she denied playing the gender card, she evoked gender with a reference to her own familiarity with the kitchen.
"I don't think they're piling on because I'm a woman, I think they're piling on because I'm winning," Clinton told reporters at the Statehouse, where she filed papers to officially place her name on the New Hampshire ballot. "I anticipate it's going to get even hotter. And if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and I'm very much at home in the kitchen."
In Tuesday night's Democratic debate, Clinton bobbled a question about illegal immigrants getting driver's licenses in New York, appearing to both support the idea and later distance herself from it. Her campaign responded with a video showing each of her male candidates zeroing in on her. And at Wellesley College on Thursday, she said the school had prepared her for "the all-boys-club of presidential politics."
(Little more than a week ago, she curiously noted that winning the Iowa caucuses might prove difficult for her because the Hawkeye State had never elected a woman governor or senator.)
It was an unusual moment for a campaign that has banked on women voters while insisting that Clinton's own experience transcends gender. But while she portrays herself as strong, experienced and able to exact change, her opponents say she is playing the victim. And her remarks on gender seemed to open up a new vein of attack.
Most pointed was from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who took her to task on the "Today" show Friday, noting that he didn't complain when the first several questions at a previous debate placed him in the cross hairs.
"I didn't come out and say, 'Look, I'm being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage,'" Obama said. "We're not running for the president of the city council. We're running for the president of the United States of America."
His campaign manager, David Plouffe, used the gender flap as a reason to bring up the issue of secrecy. He issued a fundraising appeal that slammed Clinton for not releasing her White House records from her eight years as first lady. "It's time to turn the page on this kind of secrecy and restore trust in our government," he wrote.
Former Sen. John Edwards' campaign trumpeted a video accusing her of "the politics of parsing" and "double talk." It featured Clinton deflecting the question about driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, as well as seeming to say one thing and then another on the Iraq war.
Even the Republicans weighed in.
"The Clinton campaign goes so far in relying upon her being a strong, strong woman . . . and then on a dime, they can switch to say, 'Oh my goodness, the men are ganging up on her,'" former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee told ABC News. "You can't have that both ways in American politics, and they're just beginning to find that out."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney released an ad accusing Clinton of never having run so much as a corner store. "She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city," he said. "She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be president as an internship doesn't make any sense."
But here in New Hampshire, where Clinton spent the last two days campaigning, questions about her candidacy seemed remote.
"Most people in New Hampshire were watching the replay of the Red Sox victory parade in Boston, not watching the presidential debate," said Kathy Sullivan, Clinton's state co-chairwoman. "I guess it's expected that at some point, there are people who are going to say, 'Let's see if we can make this more of a race than it is.'"
At the Red Arrow diner in Manchester, Michelle Trumble, a 3rd-grade teacher and independent voter, waited excitedly to shake Clinton's hand.
"There's always been a man running the country and it's time for a woman," she said, praising Clinton for overcoming obstacles that other women could not. "It's just a feeling I have about her. Anything would be better than what we have now."
And during visits to Crackskulls Coffee and Books, as well as the diner, voters asked Clinton about health care and education, not the debate.
"If there was ever a campaign prepared to deal with a bump in the road, certainly it's Sen. Clinton's," said Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic chairman.
Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the Democratic think tank Third Way, said it's not clear whether the charges against Clinton will stick.
"She had one tough debate, but that does not a major stumble make," he said, adding that she needs to find a better way to deal with it. "I don't think she needs 'the boys are being mean to me' story line. I think she needs to put her head down and keep plugging."
At a rally on the front lawn of the state Capitol, Clinton appeared to be doing just that, pointedly noting what a "pleasant change" it is to have a roster of Democratic candidates that voters can feel proud of.
"We don't have to be against anybody," she said.
And she told reporters that it might be good to have a president who is capable of dealing with nuance and complexity.
"I will continue to say what I believe, and sometimes it may not be as artfully presented as I would wish," she said. "But I think some of the challenges facing our country and some of the difficult issues we have to grapple with are not so easily answered within a 15-second hand raise or sound bite."
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jzuckman@tribune.com
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