Do People Really Hate Hillary?

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Ask most people what they think about the candidates in the running for the next presidential election, and you’ll get a variety of responses: John Edwards is the Breck Girl, John McCain is tired, Rudy Guiliani scary, Barack Obama inexperienced.

But ask people what they think of Hillary Clinton, and the answer will rarely be neutral. Ranging from "She’s the best senator New York has ever had," to "I hate her, she’s the anti-Christ." It's rare to find someone who doesn't care one way or another.

The conservative right has long been no fan of Mrs. Clinton, dating back to the Bill Clinton White House. Red-state voters do not want to see a repeat of the Bill and Hill show. They feel she is too fond of Big Government, they don’t like her plans for health care, and don’t appreciate her stances on gun control and abortion. Some conservatives feel she is too progressive, and far too liberal.

And if the conservatives think that Hilary leans too far to the left, the left disagrees. Liberals feel that Hillary is too conservative, too mainstream, and they don’t appreciate her vote on the Iraq war, and her claim that a United States presence must remain there.

Strangely, the two sides have some common ground. One complaint is that Clinton is too concerned with her own image. Much of America is tired of generic politic-speak. So much of what she says seems calculated for the record, and her slick political campaign machine runs a little too smoothly. For those who are tired of polished politicians and who want only honest, progressive government, Hillary Clinton is too much of the machine to represent those raging against it.

But no matter which side you’re on, and what likely legitimate reasons one may have for not being pro-Hillary, there are also the ridiculous claims against her which are hard to support. Like "Hitlary," "Hillary bin Laden," and the ungrounded, "I don’t know why but I just don’t like her."

And the supposedly progressive feminists who don’t like her? They feel she’s being too much like a man.

"…she seems like patriarchy in sheep’s clothing," writes self-proclaimed progressive feminist Susan Douglas in an article for In These Times. Why? Because "…she seems to want to be more like a man in her demeanor and politics." What does that mean? She may be ambitious and even aggressive in her tactics, but does that make her like a man? She should be a girly-girl to win the Presidency? Concludes Douglas, "If Hillary Clinton wants to be the first female president, then maybe, just maybe, she should actually run as a woman."

Ouch. These claims against Hillary just sound silly. Obama does not get accused of trying to be "too much like a woman" because he appears to be the modern, sensitive man. Bald ambition may or may not seem like an attractive trait in a political candidate, but come on, it doesn’t make someone "more like a man."

And remember, the election is still a long (some say oh, so long) year plus away. One thing Hillary Clinton has been able to do as a senator is change minds, a rare skill in a politician. Elected as New York’s senator in 2000, she won re-election by a much higher margin in 2006. In addition, she has put in her time and worked hard to turn former enemies in the Senate into allies.

Her true appeal lies in effective policy-making and her dogged advocacy for the state she represents. Unfortunately for Clinton, dogged effectiveness doesn’t sell nearly as well as the gosh-darn down home charm exhibited by our current President and the former President Clinton. She’s not a charmer, that’s for sure.

But she has some time to change our minds.