Newsflash: Another Bogus "Hillary Is Calculating" Non-Story Bites The Dust
April 30, 2007 -- 6:12 PM EST // // Post a Comment
As you may know by now, the non-story of the day surrounding Hillary Clinton is that she apparently uses the name "Hillary Clinton" on Presidential campaign material while sticking with "Hillary Rodham Clinton" on her Senate-related stuff.
This alleged "gotcha" story was first pushed by Hearst newspapers in a piece linked (natch) on Drudge, Newsmax, Free Republic and a few other far-flung outposts in the wingnuttia hinterlands. It's now the subject of an Associated Press story -- carried by ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and others -- that actually says in its lede that Hillary has an "identity crisis." Both the Hearst and AP stories strongly imply that Hillary's people are calculatingly using "Rodham" to speak to the New York audience while sticking with "Hillary Clinton" to appeal to the national audience. Says Hearst:
Clinton identifies herself as "Hillary Clinton" in her campaign press releases and on her campaign website. The lone mention of her maiden name is in a campaign biography that says "Hillary's father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from Scranton."She continues to use "Hillary Rodham Clinton" in her New York-focused press releases and in the Senate.
Okay -- how to explain this, then?
Someone has just sent me the text of six political ads and two press releases from Hillary's 2000 and 2006 Senate reelection campaigns in New York. In all of them, Hillary is defined as -- yup -- "Hillary Clinton." From the 2006 New York campaign there's this ad:
Narrator: Hillary Clinton has fought to limit the sale of violent video games to our children, worked to improve our ability to track sexual offenders and to protect our kids from internet predators. In the senate, Hillary Clinton has fought tirelessly to protect children. She always has, she always will.Clinton: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.
And this one:
Narrator: They stand up every day for our state and our country, so Hillary Clinton has fought for them...Time and again, Hillary Clinton has stood up for the brave men and women who stand up for us.Clinton: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.
From a New York Senate campaign press release on September 13, 2000:
“Rick Lazio’s ad is false. Hillary Clinton was one of the first in the country to support teacher testing. New Yorkers have a real choice in this race between Hillary Clinton who has been a leader, one of the first in the country to support teacher testing, and Rick Lazio, who has followed the Republican Leadership and voted repeatedly to cut education,” said Clinton Campaign Communications Director Howard Wolfson.
From another one on October 10, 2000:
HILLARY CLINTON: FIGHTING TO HELP PARENTS PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN
And I've got more. Does this conclusively prove that the campaign hasn't made an internal decision to stick with "Hillary Clinton" for national appeal? No, but it certainly makes it awfully difficult to sustain the notion that this represents a shift born of geographic political calculation. It's unclear, in fact, that there was any kind of shift of this sort in any meaningful sense at all, really. After all, Camp Hillary, and Hillary herself, were calling her "Hillary Clinton" way back in 2000, and as recently as 2006, and in both cases they were speaking exclusively to New Yorkers.
I mean, come on now. Can't we stop with this silliness? Ever?
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