Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Mrs. Edwards hassles Hillary

Her criticism of Senator Clinton can be found in this Salon interview, here; as Drudge is reporting, Elizabeth Edwards said in part: "Sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women's issues...I'm not convinced she'd be as good an advocate for women. She needs a rationale greater for her campaign than I've heard..."

Hmmm. What's going on here? Several things, I think: 1] Senator Clinton remains the frontrunner among Democrats for the 2008 party presidential nomination. John Edwards right now sits 3rd, at best. The Edwards campaign needs to knock Hillary down a bit, to create a buzz. One way to do that is to attack. 2] But John Edwards doesn't want to attack himself. That would look too "divisive" and "negative." 3] Plus, maybe he doesn't want what would appear to be, among many Democratic and liberal women, the negative connotations of a man attacking a woman. So 4] have his wife do it. And how can the Clinton campaign retailiate? It won't be easy to do so. After all 5] Elizabeth Edwards has cancer.

Interesting strategy; we'll see what happens. UPDATE: likely the above is part of a concerted strategy to have Mrs. Edwards play a larger role in her husband's campaign, in order to boost his standing among Democratic women. See for example the latest Edwards campaign ad, which features his wife.