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Female lawmakers react to Edwards’s fashion remark |
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By Jonathan E. Kaplan
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Posted: 07/26/07 08:07 PM [ET] |
Former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) jab at the pink blazer Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) wore at Monday’s presidential debate has gotten Democratic women talking.
The candidates were asked via YouTube to say something nice and something negative about whoever stood to their left; such a question is asked in almost every debate. For the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee, that person was the former first lady.
After praising what Clinton “has done for America, [and] what her husband did for America,” Edwards paused and added, “I’m not sure about that coat.”
“Yes, John, it’s a good thing we’re ending soon,” Clinton said as the audience laughter died down.
Apart from further fashion-policing of the jacket or Clinton’s overall appearance (last week, The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic, Robin Givhan, dedicated a column to analyzing the senator’s show of cleavage), Edwards’s remark yielded a variety of interpretations, although everyone agreed that he is comfortable with intelligent and strong women.
“He wanted it to be a lighthearted jab,” Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) said. “As an estrogen-based life form, there are few things that are off-limits and it always gets back to the same old things.
“If they cannot prove that you’re not strong enough, that you’re not smart enough, eventually it gets back to the same things,” Tauscher added, referring to personal appearance.
Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said, “It was unintentional and it was meant to be funny, but I think it fell flat for most people.”
Tauscher and Gillibrand have endorsed Clinton.
Clinton’s campaign did not return a request for comment, but is playing off of Edwards’s remark at her website, HillaryHub.com, which is prominently displaying a photo of her at the debate, captioned, “Pretty Formidable in Pink.”
“He was trying to make a gentle joke,” said Democratic political consultant Anita Dunn, who is not affiliated with any campaign. “It’s OK in context, but it looks funny the next day.”
Others found his comment innocuous.
“I thought it was flirting, frankly,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said.
The 2008 Democratic presidential primary race has provided rich material — much of it centered on Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards — for a future graduate student’s thesis about the nexus of gender, fashion and politics.
Edwards’s wife last week told Salon.com that her husband would be a better advocate for women than Clinton given his emphasis on poverty and healthcare. Earlier this month, Elizabeth Edwards called into MSNBC’s talk show, “Hardball,” to lecture conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who has criticized her husband harshly.
The former North Carolina senator has endured criticism for getting a $400 haircut and for combing his hair for several minutes, as featured on a YouTube video. But the campaign has done its best to make light of Edwards’s grooming regime.
A Web advertisement aired during Monday’s debate, entitled “What Really Matters,” drove home the point that the media is focusing on fluff rather than Iraq, relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina and healthcare.
The Edwards campaign is noticeably frustrated about the media’s coverage of its candidate’s looks and wealth given that he has offered detailed proposals for a universal health insurance plan and poverty programs and has been more aggressive in calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
“It was a joke, a joke that clearly shows the trivial significance of superficial attacks,” Edwards’s spokeswoman, Colleen Murray, said.
Edwards also said during Monday’s debate, “Anybody who’s considering not voting for Senator Obama because he’s black or for Senator Clinton because she’s a woman, I don’t want their vote. I don’t want them voting for me.”
Several female Democratic lawmakers who watched the debate did not want to read anything into Edwards’s remark or get caught up in a discussion of gender roles.
A few took the opportunity to praise Clinton’s ensemble.
“I loved that color she had on,” Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) said. “It looked really glamorous.”
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