Cite?
Can you cite an impression? Seems a lot like an opinion.
Well sure—“when she said XXX in the first debate against Trump, that was a clear message to women to vote for her (for being a woman) because XXX…” Or “By being so connected to such and such a group she was saying XXX because…”
Even opinions can be supported with evidence.
(Mainly, I’m riffing on the previous post…but the opinions expressed by sps49sd and foolsguinea are not my impression at all and I’m curious about where it comes from.)
(I should note that Madeleine Albright did say something similar to this on Clinton’s behalf, but I’m talking specifically about Clinton here.)
I don’t think Clinton expected such, she is much too smart for that and knew that at least Anti-abortionists would be voting for whoever the Republican was. Though many of her more fervent supporters seemed to think that all woman, all African Americans and a huge majority of Latinos would and should vote for her. This comes from the huge survey of maybe 12 people I know. :o
But rather than argue Clinton who I’m pretty damn sure won’t try running again, how about getting back to Senator Gillibrand and the others more likely to try.
I was thinking of Dr. Albright’s remarks, if you want something actually said. But yeah, I think there was an assumption that of course voters in general and women in particular would come out to vote for the first female President.
And the shock of that not happening has led to an overreaction in the other direction, where many Democrats assume that a woman can’t ever win the Presidency.
I think the reality is that Hillary was judged on her own record and her own merits, which is what we want to have happen. Being a woman shouldn’t be a leg up nor a handicap. I think some people think either you can just “affirmative action” your way in, because they think that’s what Obama did–and you can’t–or that the system is just totally rigged against women–and I think it’s not really that, either. The system does look rigged for the GOP and their backers, or against democracy. The political subculture *is *sexist. But I think a woman can win, if she’s nominated and credible and has something beyond lady parts going for her.
From what I saw, it sure looks like Hillary lost because a lot of Midwesterners didn’t really want her and Bill back.
To swing this back to Gillibrand:
Hillary was a feminist because she was a lady with a law degree and a career. Gillibrand not only is that, she is someone who fights for the treatment of women in the workplace; that’s more.
She has feminist credibility and strong anti-Trump credibility; that may mean a lot in the primary, and in the general, if she runs this cycle. I think Sherrod Brown’s union ties may count for more, and it remains to be seen what Warren and Sanders do. K.G. may be better off just building her career in the Senate. But she does have something to run on, so I think she has more of a shot than Julián Castro or some of the other screwballs that have been named.
Okay. I disagree with your second line in post #85–I think that as What Exit? says Clinton was well aware that there were millions of women who were not going to vote for someone with her positions on abortion, health care, and guns. But I do agree with most of the rest of what you say.
In fact, I’ll go a little farther: I think it’s important to remember that Clinton lost the election only because of the electoral system, and even then only because of a very small number of votes in three states. We could talk all day about her campaign strategy (spoiler: it wasn’t very good), but in general if you run a campaign in which you outpoll your opponent by 2 percentage points, you should expect to win. So of course a woman can win; if not for mathematical and demographic quirks, one already did.
(I’m not trying to relitigate the election, BTW: the rules are the rules, and according to the rules Trump won and Clinton didn’t. But if a woman can win three million more votes than her opponent, we’re not talking about electing a woman being “to dream the impossible dream.”)
Hillary didn’t fight for women? 
I hope you have a cite for this bizarre claim, since this revisionism will come as a surprise to the women she fought for. How many cites need I show to rebut your revisionism?
Here’s a 1995 speech titled “Women’s rights are human rights” which is ranked as #35 in a quasi-official list of the most significant American speeches of the 20th century. (It ranks #4 in the century when speeches by males are excluded. Recall that the 20th century had a whopping One Hundred Years.) *** Guess who the speaker was?***
No: no fair clicking yet. Guess whose speech it was. I await your retraction and apology. 
I may have been too dismissive. But really, do you think Hillary’s brand of feminism plays well with feminist voters in the USA today?
Are feminist voters of one bloc with one concept of what feminism means?
HRC did a metric shitload of good fighting hard and effectively for the treatment of women in the workplace … and across the world. But given her husband and her defense of him those decades past she is not a face that works when #metoo is the main issue. It is that past that makes her brand “off” as feminist today I think, not how hard she worked and how much she accomplished.
Personally, one of the reasons I didn’t support Clinton was that her election would have been a major blow against feminism. If she had gotten elected, the message it would have sent to young women would have been “Yes, you, too, can accomplish whatever you want, if you just marry the right man”. I’d much rather our first female President be someone who got there based on what she did, not her husband.
Of course, Trump’s election was an even bigger blow against feminism, so it really wasn’t a hard choice in the general election. But we could have done a lot better in the primary.
No more than GWBush’s election was “you too can get elected President if your father was.” Or Al Gore “you too can be a Senator if your father was.” The nepotism with men is invisible, but God forbid we elect a woman if she has a powerful husband. Then it must be her husband and its a strike against womankind and sets us all back. Cause GW Bush reflected poorly on all men.
People get a foot in the door for lots of reasons, inclusive of who they know or are related to. The name recognition she had by virtue of having been first lady may have helped her get that foot i the door for her Senate run. Her career after that was based on what she did after having that foot in the door.
(And by many accounts in Little Rock she was the Cyrano de Bergerac with Bill the Christian and the public as the Roxanne, with her gender not from round hereness being the nose. IOW to no small degree it was Bill whose career hinged on his having married the right woman.)
But out of curiosity — would you dismiss Klobucher based on the fact that her father’s name helped get her elected to her seat?
And I wasn’t too keen on Bush’s election, for much the same reason.
His election was a major blow against feminism too?
His election wasn’t a blow against feminism, but it was still a blow against egalitarianism and meritocracy.
As someone who voted for Al Franken and liked him a lot as a Senator, I bear a grudge against Gillibrand over that one.
I was also reading about how just a few short years ago, she was one of the most conservative Democrats with an A grade by the NRA but has changed her positions radically and become one of the most liberal members of congress.
That alone raises all sorts of red flags with me. Sure, people change their positions - I know I have - but it makes me wonder what her true positions are or if she’s just a political chameleon, which I would have no interest in voting for.
I damn sure don’t.
The NRA’s shown repeatedly in recent years that if you’re a Dem, it’ll go to the mats for your opponent even if you’ve got that A rating from them. There’s no upside anymore to being a pro-gun Democrat.
Gillibrand’s stance on Franken, who used to be my absolute favorite Senator, considerably raised her appeal in my eyes. Good for her for being consistent in opposing sexual harassment and assault.