Saturday, July 28, 2007

A Hat Tip for Hillary
Obviously, I'm not a fan... but you have to admire this.

Few political fundraising e-mails have ever carried the subject header “cleavage,” but White House hopeful Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign sent a solicitation to supporters Friday with the attention-grabbing header in order to decry a recent Washington Post article devoted to the New York Democrat’s chest — and raise campaign cash in the process.

“Frankly, focusing on women’s bodies instead of their ideas is insulting,” Ann Lewis, a senior adviser to Clinton, wrote in the e-mail. “It’s insulting to every woman who has ever tried to be taken seriously in a business meeting. It’s insulting to our daughters — and our sons — who are constantly pressured by the media to grow up too fast.”

“Take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture,” Lewis adds, with a link to make a contribution to the campaign. “And take a stand for Hillary, the most experienced, most qualified candidate running for president.”


"Brilliant" actually might not be a strong enough compliment here. One of Sen. Clinton's enduring problems in trying to win the Democratic nomination is that she actually does much better among working-class and less educated women than with academic high-achievers and extremely accomplished professional women like herself.

But one experience common to probably every single woman who could be thus described is being objectified in a professional context, and getting pissed off about it. Thanks to the vapid Washington Post article, Sen. Clinton now has a shared experience, and an emotionally resonant one at that, with "every woman who has ever tried to be taken seriously in a business meeting."

These people really do play the game of politics at a much higher level. I'm rooting against them, but the strategery is masterful.

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