The New York Times’ Amy Chozick has a piece of political analysis to get your eyes rolling, if that’s something you’re interested in. It seems that Hillary Clinton is having trouble addressing Donald Trump’s massive issues with sexism, misogyny, and sexual assault, because of her own compromised past. Yes, the same Hillary Clinton who forcefully addressed Trump’s ugly record on women at the second debate. Never mind that, Amy Chozick says she’s “effectively paralyzed.” How do we know?
The most impassioned speeches on the topic have come not from her, but from the first lady, Michelle Obama, who said Mr. Trump’s words had “shaken me to my core,” and from President Obama and others. When Mrs. Clinton herself spoke, she quickly changed the subject to other groups of people Mr. Trump had insulted, and she tried to lighten the mood with a joke about watching cat videos.
No. 1: There’s a major tradition in presidential politics of surrogates saying things the candidate can’t or won’t. And when Michelle Obama says it, it gets a kind of attention it wouldn’t get when Hillary Clinton says it. That’s something Chozick, a political reporter in good standing, should well know.
No. 2: As Chozick later notes, Clinton is “Not known as a naturally emotive public speaker.” So, you know, there may be speeches that other people can more effectively deliver. If MIchelle Obama wants to dominate headlines destroying your opponent, you get the hell out of her way.
No. 3: That cat GIF joke was pretty great.
In short, that is one stupid paragraph. It is not the only stupid paragraph. “She has played it safe,” Chozick writes, “all but disappearing from the campaign trail until the next debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday.” Because she never did debate prep ever before! This is something entirely new!
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The whole article is written as if Clinton is running scared, as opposed to winning handily. As if Clinton is watching helplessly, unable to address Trump’s issues, as opposed to having addressed them a few times herself and then moved on to other issues, secure in the knowledge that the Obamas and other surrogates are out there burying Trump on women almost as fast as he’s burying himself. Hillary Clinton has not stopped being an effective voice for women just because we found out her opponent is a sexual predator or because he’s ready to attack her for things her husband did decades ago. Rather, that Clinton is kinda different from Trump on women’s issues is such a slam dunk at this point that it doesn’t need to be Clinton’s main personal focus. But maybe that’s too subtle a point for a New York Times reporter to get.