Chris Matthews once got himself in
a heap of trouble for saying Bill Clinton's infidelity
essentially installed Hillary Clinton in a Senate seat, but now
Howard Wolfson
is claiming John Edwards (thankfully, for her sake, more
tangential!) affair would have won her the Democratic nomination
and, thus, possibly the presidency, had it been revealed earlier.
Wolfson is surely overestimating the number of genteel,
self-consciously miffed upper middle-class Edwards voters who would
have flocked to
establishment over
revolution in
the aftermath of such revelations. (Caveat/aside: I wonder whether
Elizabeth Edwards still contends John is
a better "advocate" for women than Hillary?) And I fully
believe Hillary has come into her own enough politically to not be
entirely dependent on the bad behavior of men for her success or
failure. Maybe the sexism-cost-Hillary claims have more relevance
than I thought, though, since those responsible for her own
campaign seem to disagree with the latter!
Either way, I'll speak with Hillary about this
over dinner and report back.
topics:
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, NATO