Matthews: "I personally don't see how" Clinton "loses at all running as the woman candidate"
Summary: Chris Matthews -- who previously claimed that "the reason" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "may be a front-runner" in the Democratic presidential primaries "is her husband messed around" -- appeared to offer another reason when he said: "I personally don't see how she loses at all running as the woman candidate." He added, "Most Democratic voters are women."
On the January 13 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, host Chris Matthews appeared to offer another reason for his view of where Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) stands in the Democratic primary when he said: "I personally don't see how she loses at all running as the woman candidate." He added, "Most Democratic voters are women." Several days earlier, on the January 9 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews said of Clinton: "Let's not forget -- and I'll be brutal -- the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit. She won because everybody felt, 'My God, this woman stood up under humiliation,' right? That's what happened."
Matthews' comment that "I personally don't see how she loses at all running as the woman candidate" came in response to panelist and National Public Radio host Michele Norris' statement that Clinton may be able to reach out to voters "[w]hen she talks about breaking those glass ceilings and starts trying to connect with other women, who have felt that, who have, you know, butted their head and their shoulders up against those glass ceilings." Norris continued: "[T]hat may be a real opportunity to say, 'You know what, I understand what it's like.' "
From the January 13 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show:
NORRIS: She has an opportunity right now, if you look at the way that so many women said that they responded to that moment where she showed some emotion and they saw something different. When she talks about breaking those glass ceilings and starts trying to connect with other women, who have felt that, who have, you know, butted their head and their shoulders up against those glass ceilings, that may be a real opportunity to say, "You know what, I understand what it's like."
MATTHEWS: I personally don't see how she loses at all running as the woman candidate. Most Democratic voters are women.
GLORIA BORGER (CNN senior political analyst): Well, she's now talking it about being a woman, and in that last debate she said, "Look, guys, I embody change. I'm a woman. He's not the only person who looks like change. I look like change." But I think Hillary Clinton has a really difficult problem here because as a woman candidate, she bent over backwards to show us how tough she was. Don't forget, this is a woman we've been watching for more than a decade. We think we know who she is already. OK? So she bent over backwards to show us how tough she is, and now she's going the other way to show us how likable she is. "Oh, you hurt my feelings." That was a brilliant line.
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. Are you suggesting contrivance?
BORGER: Oh, you think? A little bit.
MATTHEWS: No, I'm wondering. I don't think it was contrived. Do you?
BORGER: I think the tearing up was absolutely real, but now I think we're at a point where this is contrivance, because it works for her, and I'm not saying that in a bad way.
—R.S.K.
