How Hillary Can Win Me Back

I saw it during the ABC/Facebook debate last night. That spark. I SAW IT.

When Edwards and Obama started hammering her tag-team style, she got ANGRY-that's when the Hillary I used to love came back out to fight.

Of course, that Hillary is the one that tends to fire me up while turning others off. That's the Hillary that gets the sexist and conservative voters calling her the b-word and railing against having a crazy woman in power.

That fight I saw in her? It was real. Genuine. It was the kind of thing her campaign was trying to manufacture with those cackles on national television and giggles of a "softer side." Why can't they just admit "Hillary lite" isn't nearly as exciting and commanding as "Hillary pissed and yelling" -- don't sell me a softer Hillary, sell me what I KNOW works and gets stuff done: Raging Ass Kicker Hillary.

I don't care anymore if you hate her for it. You hated her anyway and you'll hate her again. I don't care if she's so far into the establishment she is considered the "same old thing."

Bring back the Hillary people love to hate instead of this Middle-of-The-Road-play-all-sides, rhetoric spewing android Democrat and she'll get me back. Then we can talk about experience AND history. Then we can talk about having the resume AND being the First Woman President.

She was right last night -- a woman in the Oval Office would be huge. But no one is talking about it yet. No one is excited about it yet-why? She's made us forget she could make history by becoming one of the many drones of politics. By becoming one of them. She used to be trail blazer, now she's lost in the herd.

Show me that trail blazer again. Show me the woman who tried to push universal health care while not even a politician. Who, when I was still a teenager, had me reading up on drug makers and their lobby? Who had me proud and excited a strong and vocal woman was injecting herself into the national spotlight in a way no other First Lady has?

Let her loose.

Then all those women and young people the Hillary camp took for granted -- all those WOMEN LIKE ME who have been waiting their ENTIRE LIVES for this just might consider making it happen.

Let her loose.

And hope it's not too late.

Comments

[Qbear]

I was friends with many feminists in college, and helped lobby for CHOICE before Roe vs. Wade.
Believe me I have waited for a woman president.­.I just thought I would have been happier when it became possible. Hillary wasn't my candidate, but I would have held my nose and voted for her, until she voted for Kyl/Lieberman. Then her campaign showed some obvious NASTY PUTRID attacks were done by her and her associates, like the Bob kerrey "complimen­ts"...what do they think Americans are morons and wouldn't notice the slime trail back to the Clintons?
So let it seem like the sexists didn't want a woman, actually some Americans did, just not THAT WOMAN.

[Jjc2006]

I hope you are right Erin.

But I do think the "angry woman" scares a helluva lot of people, especially the men peeps. I like the angry woman. Women should be ass kicking angry. Our entire lives (I am Hillary's age) we have been insulted and ignored for being too opinionate, too assertive and too uppity.

I am a single woman. Maybe, some say, you were not pretty enough, or skinny enough, or sexy enough. But I get it. I didn't "shut up" enough. Males mocked me as a Jane Fonda (somehow thinking they were insulting me...they weren't). More than a few dittoed Limbaugh's feminazi crap.

I have been called naive, man hating, and mouthy. I have a friend whose husband introduces me as a "socialist" and insists Hillary and I want to take away all their guns. If I get angry, I piss off my friends, so I tolerate their bigoted husbands to keep the peace.

I understand Hillary. All our lives we have been insulted and when we get angry about it we are called mentally unfit. Go to some liberal blogs tonight and read the "Hillary lost it...the woman is crazy...sh­e can't take it...she's imploding.­"

But maybe it is time for Hillary (and me) to say "Screw it..." and say what we want regardless of whose husbands get intimidated.

[JacktheBlogger]

Marketing 101 demands that your message be tailored to your market segment. Hillary needs to decide if she wants to even bother with the notoriously unreliable Gen Y market segment (18-26 years old), which might show up for the primaries but not turn out in the general election. It's largely Gen Y that is fueling the Barack Obama campaign on the Democratic side and the Ron Paul campaign on the Republican side.

Hillary might be better off honing her message of "change" slightly differently to the Gen X segment (27-42 years old) instead. This segment might be more appreciative of a candidate who represents change that can only be brought about through actual experience. Thus Hillary might want to appeal to this crowd with a message such as:

REAL CHANGE REQUIRES RELEVANT EXPERIENCE.

Hillary Clinton's experience and track record establishes her as the most RELIABLE, RESILIENT, and READY candidate to assume the presidency of the United States.

HILLARY: RELIABLE, RESILIENT, and READY!

[TRYKER]

Erin, you had to have been reading my mind.
I too saw that energy rise up in her and KNEW she could have cut Obama into a million pieces with her knowledge and will.
She did get him though, he was stunned and didn't regain himself the rest of the night.
I want 5 star general spouting orders and getting the gang in gear. She could get on the soapbox and tell the world what she can do and with the brain to do it.
She is like a steel trap, she can handle anything they throw at her...but the MSM is holding her back with all their "talking points", plain old sexism and fear-mongering.
Message to Hillary: Fire your 'advisers', they're scamming you while the DLC pushes Obama.
Forget that you're a woman, so what, get in there and fight. Buy some alone time on TV and make a whopping strong powerful speech about what you're gonna do big time. Be a man about it for god's sake.
Go read Molly Ivens piece where she says, Unless she gets behind the actual causes afoot and fights like hell, she might as well sit down.
There are too many cooks in Hillary's kitchen.

[LindaJay]

Erin, I loved seeing the passion as well. Because Hillary has been totally excoriated by the MSM slime machine this cycle. She doesn't get anything close to fair coverage, or accurate coverage, and yet she is still standing. Her resume is ten times as long as Edwards and Obama put together, and yet all we hear about is cleavage or clapping or how she laughs, or worse. The powers that be have put everything they can into defeating her and electing someone they think will be a cakewalk to beat in the general. And yet she's still standing. I, too, want to see her get pissed off about that and start kicking ass bigtime. Unfortunately, though, we know how that will go. Go sample some of the blogs today and you'll see how even many women bloggers just can't take the spectacle of a woman showing a little passion. A man does it and they like it. A woman does it and it's shrill. The big problem is, of course, that America still has the mentality of a bunch of boys in the locker room comparing who has the biggest.

[bbln]

Erin - I think you are right, but 15 years of Republican attacks based on sexist, distorted manipulated photos and scandals now finding themselves on Huffpost (did you see the screenshots last night at 12:00am)and the "shrill angry" Clinton video that Ben Smith of Politico posted and then revealed was sent to him by the RNC - the collusion of the RNC with leftist blogospheres - is why people have a knee-jerk hatred for Clinton. If she were a fresh face (which let's face it, it'll be another lifetime with a viable woman candidate since only 16% of congress is women), women would be out in droves. But what causes people to distrust her and not HEAR THIS is because the RNC is still leading Democrats by the nose and building the Hillary-hate - look deeper; I don't think it's that she's been too conservative about unleashing her real self, it's the same stuff that disallows you from hearing this (it's Republican branding): OBAMA talk vs. action

If you give a speech saying you'll vote againt the Patriot Act and you don't, that's not change.

if you say you're going to prevent members of congress to have lunch with lobbyists sitting down, but they can still have lunch standing up, that's not change.

If you say you passed the Patients Bill of Rights, but you don't mention it never got signed into law, that's not change.

If you rail against the special intersts..­.but you voted for Dick Cheney's energy bill, that's not change

If you gave a speech -- and a very good speech -- against the war in Iraq in 2002 and then by 2004 you're saying you're not sure how you would have voted, and by 2005 six and seven you've voted for $300 billion for the war you said you're against, that's not change.

[OtayPanky]

You're wrong Erin.

The American spirit craves the passion of a HAPPY WARRIOR - and Hillary just doesn't come off that way.

Bill did. George W did. Reagan did. Kennedy did. Roosevelt did. Ike did too. And Obama does too.

Hillary doesn't.

That's why a lot of people - of both sexes - viscerally dislike her. They wouldn't want her as their boss in an office, and by extension they don't want her as their boss at 1600 right now.

Maybe she'll do a Nixon, take a breather, and figure out how to solve this problem in eight years. But right now, it doesn't look like she will.

[indycar]

Hillary has been trying to be someone she is not. Her real self came out last night - the one that people hate. The one perhaps you like. She had her arrogant and condescending tones and attitudes back - her new 'electability' veneer had been removed. Her entitlement mojo. Pssh. When I listened to audio clips of her this morning and I heard her tone (and comments) .. such a turn off. She was the wicked witch we all know she is, but that has been in hiding.

This is the Hillary that is unelectable. It reminds us of her machine and the Clinton cronies. She is running on words as much as any of the rest of them are. This hypocrisy is what we have seen through the Dubya years and voters have had enough of it.

Pat Oliphant illustrates Hillary’s entitlement mentality well:

http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2007/12/17/
http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2007/12/05/

[shoopnyc]

My thoughts exactly. Thank You.

[sky2evan]

Interesting point.

However, I think being a "fighter" and "getting angry" is more appropriate and justified in certain situations than in others. Being angry about our health care system, global warming, and women's rights, is more justified, but being "attacked" by the "tag-team" of Obama-Edwards for "ganging up on her" isn't.

Notice that in the greatest "fight" our country is engaged in currently, Iraq, Ms. Clinton stubbornly refuses to acknowledge her own very human human error in support of that debacle which is claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands. She doesn't appear to be very angry or upset about that at all (perhaps because most of the dead are non-American voters who have little influence over her political future).

I cannot morally support anyone who feels no regret about Iraq, whether they are a "fighter" or not. I truly hope that one day in our world there are more women leaders - but I prefer the more peace-inclined Bhuttos (who supported conciliation with Musharraf), as opposed to the more war-inclined Margaret Thatchers. And Ms. Clinton seems to be more akin to the latter, rather than the former.

Which touches on the foreign policy angle which Ms. Clinton has previously tried to sell herself on. Proclaiming that she has visited so many countries and knows many world leaders, which on the surface gives her foreign policy "substance", it unfortunately wasn't enough "experience" to help her avoid supporting American's biggest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam, which has cost thousands of lives, 500+ billion dollars, and America's global reputation.

So I fail to see how she is "ready" for the future if she can't accept the mistakes that she's made in the past.

[MPeter]

Watch Luntz and see if his audience trusts Hillary. I think these are serious, thoughtful people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apv5KWHgXTE

[dtd]

And having an African American president wouldn't be as monumental or more? What the hell is with this sense of entitlement, that something is owed?

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

yep, the real Hillary. self-centered, lashing out with irrational and obtuse self-serving charges. protective of her precious ego and personal ambition.

[Snakeback]

I hear what you are saying.

But the phrase "let her loose" shows that there is still some misunderstanding.

No one can let Hillary loose except Hillary herself. She drowned in a whirlpool of "experts" not the least of whom are her husband and her campaign manager/ head pollster.

I suspect she'll have to kick their asses first to set herself loose.

But only she can do that for herself.

That would energize me too. But I don't see her actually doing it, at least not in time to restore herself as the front runner.

Like you, I don't care if a politician gets angry. They should. Any thinking American who has his head on straight should be angry when they look at the disaster American politics have become.

A hell of a lot of asses need to be kicked up and down the halls of Congress. Some of them over and over again.

I'm waiting for the politician who is pissed off and strong enough for the job.

So far however- no real takers.