America loves women like Hillary Clinton–as long as they’re not asking for a promotion [View all]
Its hard to remember these days, but just a few years ago, everybody loved Hillary Rodham Clinton. When she stepped down as US secretary of state in January 2013 after four years in office, her approval rating stood at what the Wall Street Journal described as an eye-popping 69%. That made her not only the most popular politician in the country, but the second-most popular secretary of state since 1948.
The 2012 Texts from Hillary meme, which featured a sunglasses-clad Clinton scrolling through her Blackberry aboard a military flight to Libya, had given rise to a flood of think pieces hailing her badass cool. The Washington Post wanted president Barack Obama to give vice president Joe Biden the boot and replace him with Clinton. Taking stock of Clintons approval ratings, Nate Silver noted in a 2012 piece for the New York Times that she currently held remarkably high numbers for a politician in an era when many public officials are distrusted or disliked.
How times have changed. The FBI And 67 Percent of Americans Distrust Hillary Clinton, booms a recent headline in the Huffington Post. Clintons favorability ratings currently hover around 40.8%. Bob Woodward complains that there is something unrelaxed about the way she is communicating. Hillarys personality repels me, Walker Bragman writes in Salon.
How can we reconcile the unlikable Democratic presidential candidate of today with the adored politician of recent history? Its simple: Public opinion of Clinton has followed a fixed pattern throughout her career. Her public approval plummets whenever she applies for a new position. Then it soars when she gets the job. The wild difference between the way we talk about Clinton when she campaigns and the way we talk about her when shes in office cant be explained as ordinary political mud-slinging. Rather, the predictable swings of public opinion reveal Americans continued prejudice against women caught in the act of asking for power.
This is a great piece. Much more at link:
http://qz.com/624346/america-loves-women-like-hillary-clinton-as-long-as-theyre-not-asking-for-a-promotion/