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UPDATE:
Interesting piece by Maureen Dowd in the Sunday New York Times, highlighting the competing forces and impulses a woman running for the highest office in the land — to date always occupied by a man — feels and has.
Dowd: “The most famous woman on the planet has a confounding problem. She can’t figure out how to campaign as a woman.”
Dowd reviews how, in 2008, taking advice from two men — Bill Clinton and Mark Penn — Hillary “campaigned like a man,” but that, today, she may be “overcorrecting”:
Now she has zagged too far in the opposite direction, presenting herself as a sweet, docile granny in a Scooby van, so self-effacing she made only a cameo in her own gauzy, demographically pandering presidential campaign announcement video and mentioned no issues on her campaign’s website.
Dowd asks, “But isn’t there a more authentic way for Hillary to campaign as a woman — something between an overdose of testosterone and an overdose of estrogen, something between Macho Man and Humble Granny?”
Not mentioned by Dowd, perhaps the increasingly prominent role Hillary’s daughter (below) is taking in her 2016 campaign may bring the proper balance or even suggest to her mother that she run like the real person she is: a woman, a mother, a grandmother and a very capable person.
Dowd ends with this word of caution:
Let’s hope that the hokey Chipotle Granny will give way to the cool Tumblr Chick in time to teach her Republican rivals — who are coming after her with every condescending, misogynist, distorted thing they’ve got — that bitch is still the new black.
Read more here
Original Post:
As Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign gets into full gear, the question on many people’s minds is what roles her husband, Bill Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea, will have in the campaign.
In a recent Politico “guide to some of the most influential players in [Hillary Clinton’s] 2016 presidential bid,” Katie Glueck lists the former president as part of “the inner circle” and says, “It’s unclear what role Bill Clinton will play in his wife’s campaign, but he is clearly a prominent voice, could be a major asset to her and brings with him a cadre of friends and advisers.”
Although some may feel nervous about Bill Clinton’s role, Glueck’s prediction is on target. However, strangely missing from the list of power players is a person who many — including this writer — feel will be one of Hillary Clinton’s greatest campaign assets: her 35-year-old daughter, Chelsea.
Already an experienced campaigner — during her mother’s 2008 campaign, “she did more than 400 events in 40 states over the course of five months” — Chelsea is expected to be an even greater asset to her mother this time as she has achieved her own professional stature and — perhaps equally important — as she is now a mother herself (Charlotte is the name of her daughter) and fits right in with and supports the family and “grandmotherly” images her mother’s campaign is projecting and emphasizing.
Sam Frizell, in TIME, says that Chelsea will be in demand during the campaign because “Americans increasingly want female candidates to talk about their families,” and, quoting Adrienne Kimmell, executive director of the Barbara Lee foundation, “It’s believable and real when you’re talking about your kids and grandkids…Voters connect with that.”
He adds:
With her mother likely to focus on her family and her personal life more in this campaign than eight years, Chelsea will be a key voice. The mother-daughter duo’s connection on stage is apparent: Hillary calls her daughter “Chels,” and Chelsea feels comfortable correcting her mother. Chelsea’s natural connection with younger voters makes her an important complement on the campaign trail to her 67-year-old mother. Emily Lobbato, a 22-year-old who saw Chelsea and her mother at an event last month, says, “Chelsea and Hillary remind me of me and my mom.”
In addition to this mother-daughter connection and appeal to women and millennial voters, Chelsea brings her own professional competence and political savvy.
Taking on increasingly prominent roles at the Clinton Foundation — she is presently vice chair — Chelsea has built a reputation by pushing for a “data and metrics office, as well as a partnership with the high-end data company Palantir, a stats review to help inform Foundation projects [and for] organizational overhauls and implementing a 2011 Simpson Thacher review recommendations for tighter fiscal oversight”
Appearing on the front cover of Elle the weekend her mother announced her campaign, Chelsea told the magazine, “When you ask about the importance of having a woman president, absolutely it’s important…One of our core values in this country is that we are the land of equal opportunity, but when equal hasn’t yet included gender, there is a fundamental challenge there that, I believe, having our first woman president — whenever that is — will help resolve.”
Of course the Clintons’ foes will point to the “$1,500 Gucci dress and Cartier bracelet” Chelsea is wearing on Elle’s cover and to Chelsea’s and her husband’s $9.25 million Manhattan apartment and to the “reportedly” up to $75,000 Chelsea is paid for speeches, “although the fees go straight to the Foundation,” according to yahoo.com.
As Chelsea becomes a more prominent and effective voice in her mother’s campaign, criticism of her is expected to grow. Fair enough, I believe she can take it. My only hope is that it will never again stoop to the level of depravity once displayed by GOP spokesman Rush Limbaugh.
Lead photo: Chelsea Clinton attends the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York City, September 24, 2013. JStone / Shutterstock.com
