Playing the “Chick” card

03 Nov, 2007 by McQ

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Anyone else notice the first reaction by some to the attack on Hillary Clinton during Tuesday’s Democratic debate was to play the “chick” card. You know, “the guys are ganging up on a girl” defense?

I thought this was about presidential politics and front-runners. Can anyone remember a time when the front-runner wasn’t attacked both by other aspirants in their party and by the opposing party?

Heat. Kitchen.

Sister Toljah sums it up well:

If Hillary Clinton wants to prove she’s just as tough as a man and show everyone she’s strong enough to lead this country in a post-9/11 era – an era which requires and demands strength, she needs to stop falsely blaming men in her own party for attacking her strictly because she’s a woman and start acting like the frontrunner who has has easily lead in the Democrat candidate polls over the past few months “for a reason.” If she continues to do so, it should lead to a lot of questions along the lines of how will she be able to present an image of strength for the US as the both the President as well as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in the face of women-hating Islamofascists when she can’t even stand up against legitimate criticisms of her ideas made by men in her own party?

Bottom line – if you want to be taken seriously, stop playing the “chick” card. Attacks on the front-runner are nothing new politically and, this whining about being ganged up upon by “six men” is simply unseemly and, as far as I’m concerned, a sign of weakness. I understand the attempt and the desired result, but when Hillary put her hat in the ring, she was not exempted from the normal politics anyone who engages in Presidential politics expects (good or bad). And if you think this was bad, wait till the Republicans start in on Clinton in earnest.

Want to play in the big leagues? Then act like it. There’s no crying in politics.

UPDATE: Obama’s not impressed with Clinton’s quick descent into gender politics:

Democrat Barack Obama, the only black candidate for president, accused rival Hillary Clinton on Friday of hiding behind her gender after she was pummelled in a debate with six male candidates.

“I am assuming and I hope that Sen. Clinton wants to be treated like everybody else,” the Illinois senator said in an interview with NBC’s “Today Show.”

“When we had a debate back in Iowa awhile back, we spent I think the first 15 minutes of the debate hitting me on various foreign policy issues. And I didn’t come out and say: ‘Look, I’m being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage’,” he said.

“I assumed it was because there were real policy differences there, and I think that has to be the attitude that all of us take. We’re not running for the president of the city council. We’re running for the presidency of the United States.”

He was speaking a day after New York Sen. Clinton — the only woman running for president — urged women voters to rally behind her against “the boys club of presidential politics.”

“Boys club of presidential politics?” There will be a backlash. This is simply unacceptable.

“So it doesn’t make sense for her, after having run that way for eight months, the first time that people start challenging her point of view, that suddenly she backs off and says: ‘Don’t pick on me’,” he said.

“That is not obviously how we would expect her to operate if she were president.”

It isn’t? Obama obviously slept through the previous Clinton years.

Previously published at QandO. Please come visit us.