Monica Lewinsky penned on op-ed Monday calling for a series of constitutional amendments, including age limits for elected officials and a ban on presidential self-pardons. In a piece in Vanity Fai…
Hillary is abrasive. As you say, zero political charisma. But she is also married to Bill, and he is as smooth a politician as has ever existed. He bleeds charisma. He plays the sexy sax, for goodness sake! The contrast does her no favors. Bill’s cheating hurt her politically, as does the fact that they are rarely seen together. It appears that their marriage is loveless and entirely political, which adds to her image as an angry shrew.
And before anyone accuses me of a double-standard, the same would be true for a man. Americans would not elect for President an angry shrew of a man who was publicly cuckolded by his sexy, confident, charismatic wife, either. Obviously, that isn’t right or fair, but there you have it. Politics has a certain high school popularity contest flavour to it.
I’d add one thing though. It’s not that Hillary lacks charisma, it’s that hers is of an interpersonal sort. She can negotiate like nobody’s business, and even her enemies speak positively of her as a person if they’ve spent any time dealing with her. But put her in front of a crowd and she’s just terrible at it. She was never going to be president but holy hell would she have made a good president Pro tempore. Heck she’d’ve been great at the job of president she just can’t do the whole getting elected president thing.
And I’d say that dissonance between her charismas really contributes with her ambition to the rumors. Very few people will see her behind closed doors where she shines, they just see someone who struggles to be likable on stage (and yes misogyny and perception play roles here too, but let’s be honest, she’s neither Obama on stage) but then she gets shit done, and makes concessions sure, but that’s part of the job. It’s easy for bad actors to say she’s threatening people instead of just extremely good with a handful of people at a time.
Hillary is abrasive. As you say, zero political charisma. But she is also married to Bill, and he is as smooth a politician as has ever existed. He bleeds charisma. He plays the sexy sax, for goodness sake! The contrast does her no favors. Bill’s cheating hurt her politically, as does the fact that they are rarely seen together. It appears that their marriage is loveless and entirely political, which adds to her image as an angry shrew.
And before anyone accuses me of a double-standard, the same would be true for a man. Americans would not elect for President an angry shrew of a man who was publicly cuckolded by his sexy, confident, charismatic wife, either. Obviously, that isn’t right or fair, but there you have it. Politics has a certain high school popularity contest flavour to it.
I’d add one thing though. It’s not that Hillary lacks charisma, it’s that hers is of an interpersonal sort. She can negotiate like nobody’s business, and even her enemies speak positively of her as a person if they’ve spent any time dealing with her. But put her in front of a crowd and she’s just terrible at it. She was never going to be president but holy hell would she have made a good president Pro tempore. Heck she’d’ve been great at the job of president she just can’t do the whole getting elected president thing.
And I’d say that dissonance between her charismas really contributes with her ambition to the rumors. Very few people will see her behind closed doors where she shines, they just see someone who struggles to be likable on stage (and yes misogyny and perception play roles here too, but let’s be honest, she’s neither Obama on stage) but then she gets shit done, and makes concessions sure, but that’s part of the job. It’s easy for bad actors to say she’s threatening people instead of just extremely good with a handful of people at a time.
That’s a great point.