Clinton campaigns in New Hampshire. Photo by Reuters
by Jill Zuckman
CONCORD, N.H. - Sen. Hillary Clinton has found herself under fire 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 on Friday 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."
See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:
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.
"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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Comments
The Hillary/Bill campaign is playing true to fashion. It ain't really the woman card this time, it's the victim card, one which Bill used so so effectively to garner sympathy when his indiscretions and lies were brought out into the open. Supposedly, Americans don't like to see people victimized. That was the case with Bill, who got lots of folks to rush to his defense even though he was a skunk out of control. Hillary is doing the same thing. Why women empathize with her is not hard to grasp. Most highly educated, intelligent women who's husbands sneak around and have sex under their noses can relate to Hillary. Rather than kick the rat out, and strike out on their own they hang onto him so that they can use his popularity and his strengths for her own advantage. She needed him more than he needed her, except for keeping the marriage, and domestic thing intact for public presentations. So this "I am your girl" Hillary will boo hoo because she got caught, like a former president caught in a lie, claim victimhood, get a lot of sympathy from her sisters in victimhood, and commence to stab her other opponents in the back.
It's pleasant to have candidates the voters can field proud of she claims. Ain't that a bunch of condescending pablum. This woman is a trip without a suitcase. And acts as if she has a problem with the 15 second sound bite. She of all people benefits from the time constraints because she has carefully rehearsed lines that she can bark off in her megaphonic voice. It would be great to have a woman running the country. But not this one. Not this time.
Posted by: GW | November 3, 2007 9:45 AM
Face it, no matter what any of these candidates say, someone will take it out of context and twist it to sound however they want. You can't win for losing in the current state of politics.
Now everyone is offended by everything...
Posted by: lochnessmonster | November 3, 2007 10:00 AM
Hillary Clinton was caught flat footed by Tim Russert when he asked the NY Senator if she endorsed Gov. Eliot Spitzer's idiotic idea to give illegal aliens driver's licenses.
Hillary changed her story thrice while using a giveaway word gotcha to explain her victim status.
Hil wants to lead like a man when confronted with bad ideas she cried like a woman and appealed to a bunch of feminists from her alma mater Wellesley. This exposed her under belly and maybe she isn't the smartest woman in the world only Tammy Wynette stand by your man. Jerry White, Sprinfield, IL
Posted by: Jerry White | November 3, 2007 10:06 AM
Hillary couldn't even keep her own house under control so how could she ever run a country? Women voters have no respect for any woman who chooses to be a patsy for her wandering husband. Do you know how many times Hillary Clinton had to do damage control on Bill. And what she and her associates did to ruin the reputations of the women who were alleged to have been assaulted by Bill? She's either the world's biggest dupe or a conniving con girl. Or maybe both.
Posted by: Georgina | November 3, 2007 10:36 AM
Sure, Obama did not say he was being picked on because he looked different on the stage. He has all the Obama apologists do that for him. Who do so by pointing at Hillary to prove Obama is different, and therefore that is why his answers are being scrutinized. Turning the page at secrecy hardly means spending more time on the campaign trail than doing the job you were elected to do. Sure there's no secrecy because there is really nothing to hide, and nothing to offer but '"his word" on what he would have done. Yes Clinton's campaign depends on her being a strong woman, and strong women have no problem calling it like they see it. More importantly taking the heat once they mess up. A nut would only over look the fact that it is completely natural that the front runner who is a polarizing candidate tied to a previous administration with a history would in fact be attacked by all sides. We are not there yet but she is the candidate to beat in that respect as she offers a broad range of material to take issue with, and so far, given that by all means she's not pristine to the scene, she has not really faltered her base of support, surprisingly.
Posted by: hmm | November 3, 2007 10:47 AM
"I don't think they're piling on because I'm a woman, I think they're piling on because I'm winning,"
She's right.
Posted by: Logic Prisoner | November 3, 2007 12:16 PM
Just so people know, the Edwards "Parsing" ad did NOT take Clinton's remarks out of context; in fact, his ad makes her look good if you see the entire segment on illegal immigration.
Clinton destroyed what little chance she ever had in the general election with her remarks on illegal immigration.
Posted by: Susan Nunes | November 3, 2007 12:19 PM
Hillary doesn't have the experience so she doesn't have a record. We know what Rudy would do if he were running a city under attack, without benefit of time or all the facts. We know what Mitt would do running a business and a state without crystal ball. They made mistakes and overcame them. Neither Obama nor Hillary can show where they made a difference.
"If I knew then what I know now"
Posted by: whatnow | November 3, 2007 1:14 PM
Everyone pounces on Hillary over illegal immigration, but I really wonder if they are willing to pay the price that even just enforcing the present laws would entail. We are dependent on cheap labor for everything from the food that is on our tables, the paint and drywall that brightens our homes, even the manure that is shoveled from our stables...
I don't mind paying more knowing that workers are paid fair wages and benefits, but I bet I'm in the minority. Remember it's the EMPLOYERS who are to blame, not the workers that are willing to work for less.
That aside, I have to ask Hillary....Come on. When was the last time you were ever in a kitchen?
Posted by: DD | November 3, 2007 3:50 PM
So, Hillary says she's at home in the kitchen. That's fortunate because the way she's going, the kitchen is where she will be after '08. Any candidate who cannot answer the simplest questions will lose. And one who says she needs to appoint a committee to study the hard issues raises the question of, "If she needs a committee, who needs her?"
Posted by: Will | November 3, 2007 4:43 PM
alt cap;
'R-E-S-P-E-C-T..♬'
Posted by: C.Morris | November 3, 2007 11:06 PM
If you read her new MySpace page she started to copy Senator Obama, she writes that she is a horrible cook & only knows how to make scrambled eggs. I guess she thought that would sound cute or something... but forgot her statement about being at home in the kitchen. One more lie exposed by her own words.
Posted by: James | May 10, 2008 10:29 PM