Thursday, June 28, 2007

"Hillary Clinton doesn't have to prove she's a man. She has to prove she's
a woman. She doesn't have to prove to people that she's tough enough or
aggressive enough to be commander in chief. She doesn't have to show she could
and would wage a war. She has to prove she has normal human warmth, a normal
amount of give, of good nature, that she is not, at bottom, grimly combative
and rather dark. This is the woman credited with starting and naming the War
Room. Her staff has nicknamed her 'The Warrior.' Get in her way and she'd
squish you like a bug. This has been her reputation for 20 years. And it is
her big problem. People want a president to be strong but not hard... Back
[in 1992], when the Clintons were newly famous, their consultants were alarmed
to find the American people did not believe Hillary was a mother. They thought
she was a person with breasts in a suit. She had a briefcase and a latte and
was late for the meeting, but no way did she have a child... The Sopranos
video the Clintons made and released this week was smart and well done... It
addressed yet again the likability problem, but from a new angle... The
film jokingly acknowledges what the Clintons well know: that a certain
portion of the voting population sees them as... well, as gangsterish. As
dark, and dishonest to a degree more extreme than is usual even in political
figures. By putting these perceptions so colorfully on the table, they make fun
of them. And they invite their foes to go too far, at just the right moment,
a year before the 2008 presidential race really begins."
---Peggy Noonan