Go ahead, disparage away. You can flip the “drip, drip, drip” for her . . . Hillary Clinton and her tenacity are not going away. Nor should she, since HC remains the only viable Democratic candidate.
So no, Joe, Hillary doesn’t need any help. Long-term, largely Republican strategist Richard Gephardt was, after all, one of the first to give the Joe story legs among progressive, NPR-listening Democrats — that Hillary would be knocked out in the primaries, and then the GOP can carry the 2016-day.
And say what you will, HC does not lack composure, let alone a sense of humor. HC has what I’d describe as a maternal sense of humor, and an “It Takes a Village” platform that needs a lot more play.
HC’s domestic issues focus on care-giving and care-receiving, which is neither gender-specific nor sexuality-specific nor age-specific . . . It actually not only takes a village, but includes the village — as do her positions on higher education and health care. She needs to lean more into these partially gender-specific issues to tap into some of Trump’s ability to gain more legitimacy and authenticity if she’s to showcase her long-term record of accomplishments along with her tenacity.
HC should start hitting back. All presidential primaries and elections are based on character, and 2016 is no different. What defines both the Democrats’ primary and what the race will be is how the mainstream media as well as Democrats interested in boosting Joe describe Hillary as being on the defensive.
HC is a woman warrior being described as a woman defending her own character. And as everyone knows, including GOP bullies, or just those wishful Democratic thinkers in support of Joe, a woman on the defensive is not good for any political party when it’s getting this close to some key primaries.
Professor Ruth O’Brien, who earned her Ph.D. in political science at UCLA, joined the Graduate Center’s doctoral faculty in 1997 and, in 2004, founded the “Writing Politics” specialization in political science. She also serves as an adjunct affiliated scholar with the Center for American Progress. In her research and books, she focuses on American politics, law, political theory without national borders, globalism, and American/global dichotomy. She edits the award-winning “Public Square” series for Princeton University Press, showcasing public intellectuals such as Jill Lepore, Jeff Madrick, Anne Norton, Martha Nussbaum, and Joan Scott. O’Brien is also launching “Heretical Thought,” an Oxford University Press political-theory series that is global in outlook. Her latest book, Out of Many One: Obama and the Third American Political Tradition (2013), with a foreword by journalist Thomas Byrnes Edsall, distinguished professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, was honored with a 2013 “Author Meets Critic” American Political Science Association convention session. She also wrote Bodies in Revolt: Gender, Disability, and a Workplace Ethic of Care (2005), Crippled Justice: The History of Modern Disability Policy in the Workplace (2001), which received an honorable mention from Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights and Bigotry (“Meyers Center”), and Workers’ Paradox: The Republican Origins of the New Deal Labor Policy, 1886–1935 (1998). “Writing Politics” emanated from two books she contributed to and edited: Telling Stories out of Court: Narratives about Women and Workplace Discrimination (2008) and Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act (2004), which earned another honorable mention from the Meyers Center. O’Brien’s controversial blog led Rush Limbaugh to dub her a “professorette.”
Go ahead, disparage away. You can flip the “drip, drip, drip” for her . . . Hillary Clinton and her tenacity are not going away. Nor should she, since HC remains the only viable Democratic candidate.