"Ferraro's line felt awfully 1970s. No one of any consequence endorsed the idea that the other candidates were sexist. " Oh really. Alter, your misogyny is showing. You and all the media and the other candidates (especially Obama) have shown just how sexist our culture still is. Women 40 and older know this and are really revolted by the lot of you. And we aren't keen on Obama either because of his many sexist comments. That doesn't fly with 40 something women (Obama's generation by the way. We know the frat boy game he's playing and it doesn't play with us. Plays great with you GUYS and the female cheerleaders of men you have in the so called newsmedia.)
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This was a twofer: it showed that Hillary is tough and can take the heat, and it helped erase the image of a woman who in 1992 got herself into trouble by saying that she had not sat "at home baking cookies," as if there was something wrong with that. (Hillary spent months afterward perfecting her cookie recipe and bringing the results to NEWSWEEK and other news organizations to try to make amends.)
But even as she and her campaign tried to spin a clear debate loss as a mugging (including a clever "Piling On" video), they sensed that they might have gone overboard playing the victim. By the end of the week Hillary insisted that her rivals targeted her "not because I'm a woman but because I'm winning." This was indisputably true. Front runners all become lightning rods; it is as much a part of the process as shaking hands and kissing babies. Unfortunately for Clinton, not everyone got the memo.
Former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter, told the New York Times, "John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours the way they attacked her. It's OK in this country to be sexist."
Ferraro's line felt awfully 1970s. No one of any consequence endorsed the idea that the other candidates were sexist. Furthermore, she got the facts wrong. Obama was indeed sharply attacked in earlier debates, with Hillary herself calling him "irresponsible and naive" for wanting to talk directly to dictators. The Illinois senator rightly pointed out that at the time neither he nor anyone else claimed that he was being picked on because he's black.
Rivals and male commentators weren't the only ones decrying the use of "the victim card" and suggesting that Hillary wants it both ways. "When unchallenged, in a comfortable, controlled situation, Senator Clinton embraces her political elevation into the 'boys club'," Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America and an Edwards supporter, wrote on the liberal blog openleft.com. "But when she's challenged, when legitimate questions are asked, questions she should be prepared to answer and discuss, she is just as quick to raise the white flag and look for a change in the rules."
Michelman's wrong on one point: Hillary Clinton doesn't raise white flags. She and her people contest everything, every step of the way. But from now on they will have one less powerful weapon. Unless another candidate pulls a Rick Lazio (or an Al Gore against George W. Bush in a 2000 debate) and tries to physically intimidate Hillary, all of her rivals are free to fire at will on the front runner, as long as she remains the front runner. Hillary's supporters can reply on the merits, or claim that Obama is betraying the politics of hope (though this line, repeated about 100 times, is awfully shop-worn already). But they will no longer be able turn it into a gender thing. They lost that argument, along with the debate itself.
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