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LIVING POLITICS

Howard Fineman

Hillary’s Achilles’ Heel

Brainy women don't frighten voters. Control freaks do.

Nov 14, 2007 | Updated: 12:23  p.m. ET Nov 14, 2007
 

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Heading into yet another TV debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton faces a potent enemy—not onstage, but in her own mind. She has a lifelong obsession with seeking out, and trying to control, unruly events and people. She often fails, and harms herself trying. If she doesn't ease up, she risks losing the race. Brainy women don't frighten voters; control freaks do.

Hillary hates surprises yet chooses to live in the most chaotic situations imaginable—from her eyes-wide-shut marriage to an undomesticated Arkansan, to a race for president in today's impossible-to-tame Wild West of bile-filled blogs and You Tube videos.

I've seen this disaster flick before. In her husband's 1992 campaign, she turned a family real-estate deal into a horror show by refusing to show documents about the transaction to The New York Times. She played the reporter along; then she stiffed him. The maneuver was too clever by half. "Whitewater" dogged the Clintons for years.

The latest example of the Control Freak Syndrome arose in Newton, Iowa, where her campaign planted in the audience at least one (and maybe several) questions to be asked of her. What on earth did she have to fear? By now she has answered thousands of questions and is smarter and better-briefed than any candidate in the field.

Why plant an innocuous question about global warming? The answer: because she could.

A campaign is an extension of the candidate, reflecting his or her personality. Bill Clinton's in 1992 was a brilliant combination of soap opera and floating crap game. George W. Bush's cold-blooded machine had no compunction about waterboarding Sen. John McCain in 2000 or swift-boating Sen. John Kerry four years later. Hillary's campaign too is personality writ large: defensive, and seeking dominion over everything that moves.

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  • Posted By: piinalu @ 11/26/2007 9:08:20 AM

    Excellent note, afype. I think your use of sarcastic hyperbole really underscores how silly most of the fears of the right are. Who really thinks anyone would be dumb enough to do some of those things, let alone all of them? I feel a lot more comfortable with her in the White House with your perspective. And to all those folks that missed the humor - look out!! the boogeyman is right behind you!!! Oh and your fly is down.

  • Posted By: Hinkle-Goldfarb @ 11/22/2007 3:00:08 PM

    Just to vainly attempt to correct the record: Bush's "machine" did not swift boat Kerry in 2004. The Swifites were an independent 527 group with no demonstrated coordination with the White House, by law, and believe me, if the Democrats had found such a coordination we would have heard about it. In fact, the only coordination I remember was Mary Mapes calling up Joe Lockhart to get Bill Birkett access to John Kerry. But I suppose coordination between the MSM and Democrats is so commonplace it's hardly remarkable.

  • Posted By: afype @ 11/21/2007 3:28:22 PM

    What experience Billary has, other than she knows how to steel, lie, decit, slander and ingenerla do nothing. What accomplishment can anyone list for her experience in running this country ?. She will raise our taxes 3 folds, Open the borders wide open to illegals more than it is now, release the criminals into our streets, give in to the terroists' demands, back down in the face of China and Russia's world domination plan and in general lower our moral and decency laws. Is she the best candiadte amongst 320 million people who live in USA ?. Is she the best person for the job of the president ?. I say NOT !.

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