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A Hot Mess for Hillary
Really interesting perspective and an interesting view point to keep in
mind if we pull the trigger...


http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a30203/hillary-clinton-hot-mess/

I'M A HOT MESS FOR HILLARY

In early March, I woke up in a hotel with a pit in my stomach. It was the
kind of ache I recognized from the bad old days of bad old relationships: a
knot that twists your midsection the morning after a late night of crying
or fighting, as your body recalls that you're upset about something and
your brain struggles to remember what. You can't quite grasp it, but you
know that consciousness will soon return the memory sleep has blotted out.

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Sure enough, as my eyes opened, the evening's grim reckoning came flooding
back: Hillary Goddamned Clinton and her goddamned personal e-mail server.

I was in Washington, DC, where I'd traveled, with my 10-week-old baby, to
attend the thirtieth-anniversary convention of EMILY's List, the group
dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women. It was a gathering of
the most powerful and, in many cases, most thrilling women in American
politics. The day ahead was to be packed with panels and interviews and
would end with a speech by the woman everyone knew—had always known, it
sometimes seems—was about to make another grab at history, Hillary Clinton.

But when I'd woken in the middle of the night to nurse, I'd blearily
checked my phone and spotted a breaking story: As secretary of state,
Clinton seemed to have flouted federal regulations by using her personal
e-mail for work. Oh Jesus, that's so Hillary, I thought with something like
the exasperated affection I feel for my obstreperous toddler. Except that
Hillary is not my toddler.

She's a woman who's trying to do something that no woman has done in the
history of the United States: get elected president. She was, in those
pre-Bernie days, seemingly the *only* plausible Democratic front-runner.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future—of the Supreme Court, of
voting rights, of reproductive health care—hinges on the outcome of her
candidacy.

A headache pierced my forehead. I shut off my phone, put the baby back in
her port-a-crib, and returned to bed.

I woke the next morning with that stomachache, dreading a day spent in the
company of impressive, inspiring women whose hopes were pinned once again
on this imperfect vessel. But soon, the next wave of news had hit: The
federal rule against using personal e-mail had been set *after* HRC left
the State Department.

Now, instead of shaking an imaginary fist at Clinton, I was shaking one at
the media's relentless kneecapping of the woman running for president, and
this was before I knew that the email story would be flogged―​harder than
any other actual aspect of her campaign for presidency―​for the next six
months ... and counting.* Why can't you hold her to the same standards you
hold "regular" candidates to*? I roared in my head. Or maybe I was roaring
it out loud. A colleague was shushing me—a panel was about to start, and I
was kind of yelling.

By the time Clinton gave her speech that night, the banquet hall packed
with high-flying female politicians was giving her an ovation. And I needed
a drink.

If there's no crying in baseball, then there's definitely not supposed to
be crying in politics.

Welcome to Decision 2016, where the stakes are high, the Democratic
front-runner is female, and those of us who care about women's
representation, the country's future, and the candidate on whom it's all
riding are stuck on the roller coaster from hell.

If there's no crying in baseball, then there's definitely not supposed to
be crying in politics. Just ask Edmund Muskie, whose tearful speech (he
blamed melting snow running down his face) in 1972 on behalf of his wife
got him ejected from that year's presidential contest. Or Gloria Steinem,
who furiously wept while speaking to reporter Nora Ephron during the 1972
Democratic convention, in reference to the men who led her party: "They
won't take us seriously…. I'm just tired of being screwed, and being
screwed by my friends." Or ask Hillary herself, who probably drew more
attention for the time in 2008 that she cried (though really, she just got
a little stuffy!) than she did for the whole of her first presidential run.
[image: The presidential candidate released a girl-power playlist this
weekend]

Getty


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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