Campaign question-3: The Hillary mystery

No, not why is she carrying on despite all odds. Nor why, in some quarters, both conservative and liberal, she seems to inspire such mean-spiritedness.




I’m curious as to why so many of her congressional colleagues — including those who serve with her on various committees, work together on legislation, whose two-term president husband brought the Democrats back from permanent opposition — why they went against her, and in many cases so quickly.

Like six-term Sen. Chris Dodd, for example, an early contender who during his run derided Obama‘s thinness of qualifications.

More recently, what did Sen. Robert Byrd not see in her, despite her landslide win in West Virginia?

Is it because she was seen as “unelectable” — a myth surely exploded by her election and re-election in a state that is far from overwhelmingly Democratic. Has she done something to piss off so many of her colleagues? Residual blame for her husband’s contribution to Al Gore’s loss in 2000? Sexism? (Then how explain Sen. Claire McCaskill, not to mention Nancy Pelosi and the governor of John McCain’s home state, Janet Napolitano.)

This is not meant to be a rhetorical question. It is not a signal for the usual Clinton-haters to start their engines. Merely a genuine inquiry.

Categories: Election 2008
Andrew Ross

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