Maybe you saw it already, but for what it's worth, the Washington Post featured an op ed last Friday from Madeleine Kunin, the former Vermont governor. The piece offered up an interesting theory on how Hillary Clinton pulled off her stunning comeback win in last week's New Hampshire primary.
Kunin, author of a forthcoming book on women in politics, says HRC won New Hampshire because voters were already accustomed to voting for women candidates so voting for Hillary was not such a big deal.
Kunin wrote that, because the state in the past elected a female governor and currently has a woman Speaker and Senate president, "it's not startling to see women in power, because they are there in significant numbers. Their hairstyles, color choices and range of emotions are less newsworthy because they are no longer one of a kind."
She said that in doing research for her book, she found that "electing women is contagious. The more you see, the more you get." Iowa hasn't been one of those states -- yet -- and that's perhaps why Barack Obama got 35 percent the female vote and Clinton got 30 percent. In New Hampshire she got 46 percent of the female vote; Obama got 29 percent.
Kunin also had this take on Hillary's now infamous "tearing up" episode at the Derry diner.
"Running or president is different for a woman than it is for a man. The difference became clear when Clinton's voice quavered and she showed deep emotion while meeting with a group of women at a diner. It was a "just us girls" moment, when she felt she could let her hair down and they would understand. A lot of New Hampshire women apparently did."
For a read of the whole column, click
HERE.
Based on Kunin's theory, Clinton won't do well in South Carolina, where she said some still hold the view that a woman's place is in the home.
-- Sam Hemingway
