"RE-ELECT HILLARY!" This bumper sticker I saw is an apt summary of both the strengths and vulnerabilities of Hillary Clinton in her newly announced run for the presidency in 2008. Take her strengths first: The little quip reminds us how very experienced and smart a politician she is, how well she has represented her state in the Senate, how fat and peaceful and ... innocent! (yes, innocent, in hindsight) ... those eight Clinton years truly were. And we are also reminded that here is a candidate who served eight years as a close observer of how to run a country. No other candidate can say the same. But that is also Hillary Clinton's major vulnerability: Her specific work experience is only possible because she is the spouse of a previous president. All this gets to smack of dynasties and hereditary power though perhaps not as strongly as in the case of the Bush presidents. Still, we all think we know the Clintons and that is why the bumper sticker says "Hillary". We are all on first name terms with her. Good friends, you know. Or are we? Perhaps some of us are, but others (especially on the right side of the political aisle) might call her "Hillary" rather than "Senator Clinton" to keep her from growing too large an image. A wife usurping the husband's place! Now there is something for the Promise Keepers to have nightmares over. Of course no woman has ever been the president of this country, and so Senator Clinton is running both as "Hillary", the woman we all think we know and a representative of a whole gender. Oh, and also as a politician with actual political stances and policy agendas, though that might get lost under all that other delicious speculation.
--J. Goodrich
