Taylor Marsh - The Hillary Effect: Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss

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TAYLOR MARSH

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Taylor Marsh is a national political analyst and commentator best known for being a die hard Clintonite, as the Washington Post described her in a 2008 profile, For Clinton, A Following Of Marshans. The New Republic profile of her in 2008, The Hugh Hefner of Politics, chronicles Marsh from her artistic career (including Broadway) into politics. A contributor to Huffington Post, as well as other new media sites, Marshs new-media blog (www.taylormarsh.com) was on the front lines during the 2008 election season.

Marsh has been interviewed by the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPANs Washington Journal, Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, among others, including radio from coast to coast. Marsh has been featured in the The Hill and The Washington Scene, Washington Journals Hotlines On Call, the LA Times, NewYorkTimes.com and many other new media and traditional news venues. A former Miss Missouri, Taylor Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

The ones who call themselves Marshans read her posts every daylegions of Hillary Clinton fans who have made Marsh their de facto leader.

The Washington Post

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright 2011 by Taylor Marsh

Hillary Clinton sculpture by Karen Caldicott

ISBN 978-1-4532-1853-2

This 2014 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Note: Certain minor changes have been made in quoted material for purposes of style only.

For my blue-collar husband,

who bet it all.

To be involved in politics you have to grow skin as thick as a rhinoceros.

Eleanor Roosevelt

There are three sides to every story: your side, my side and the truth. And no one is lying

Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, 1994

Some consider Hillary Rodham Clinton a lightning rod; some consider her a heroine. One thing is certain: Not even a decade into our twenty-first century, Hillary became the human conductor through which our countrys political sexism was forever changed, if not exorcised. Her presidential campaign was ugly, exhilarating and historic, and because of it (thankfully), the new generation of women rising up wont have to face the same kinds of assaults. The sheer onslaught of sexism directed at her ended the effectiveness of these types of smears.

Hillary was the first female presidential candidate to come out of the modern feminist movement. Her candidacy is also the last of its kind.

My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democratic convention, 2008)

It was Hillary who finally convinced me to join her fight. I didnt start out to be a die-hard Clintonite. Far from it. Yet thats the tag I earned in a Washington Post profile back in June 2008.

It all began with a silly public spat when the Clinton team advertised on right-wing websites like Townhall, Power Line and Captains Quarters at the kickoff of the Democratic primary battle. I called out this strategy on the Huffington Post, as well as in my new-media blog, and the National Journals Hotline On Call blog picked up my critique, asking Clintons national spokesperson Phil Singer for a response. Were on some conservative sites because were not ceding any territory, he said. We take nothing for granted.

Well, that in a nutshell described the Clinton team problem out of the gate. They were running a general election campaign before theyd won the nomination. A shock was on its way that would rock the political world.

Clintons political potential lit up the right long before she ran for president. Her adversaries sensed when she was first lady that theyd better take care of her, hoping to stop her before she got started. When she ran for president, the right was joined by adversaries on the left, with the media piling on and playing along.

Since Hillary Rodham Clinton ran for president women have made even more progress. We had Ladies Night in the 2010 elections, with women on the right rising and Sarah Palin leading their way. Then in 2011, Rep. Michele Bachmann became the Tea Party presidential hopeful, raising more money in the first quarter of the year than all the other GOP wannabes, including Mitt Romney, the fragile front-runner at the time.

I was well into contemplating this book when the 2010 Ladies Night happened. It was remarkable for many reasons, especially since the women who won didnt have to fight the gender war. In fact, gender wasnt even an issue. With some help from Sarah Palin, the first woman to benefit from the Hillary Effect, conservative women ruled, and none of them had to wage the old politics-of-sex battle.

But lets not get carried away. As of 2011, the United States is around seventieth on the list of world nations when it comes to female representation, according to renowned feminist and journalist, Gloria Steinem. Weve got seventy-six women in the House of Representatives, seventeen senators and six governors.