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.