Saturday, April 21, 2007

Hillary Clinton's Bad Hair Year

Nothing seems to be going right for the Democrats’ leading contender to replace George Bush--no tragic missteps, no major gaffes, no serious mistiming, just a nagging sense of a campaign not quite on track.

Rutgers, for example: Sen. Clinton was to be there Monday, but a spring storm flooded the area and she didn’t make it until yesterday. By then, Virginia Tech had wiped Imus out of the national mind, and the basketball players were “too busy studying” to meet her. Mrs. Clinton spoke to the coaches, but they did not appear at her campus speech.

To the 700 who were there, the Senator proposed a Rutgers Pledge: ”Will you be willing to speak up and say,'Enough is enough' when women or minorities or the powerless are marginalized or degraded?”

Along with this call to arms, she essayed a little levity on the subject of the “nappy-headed” slur. "I have been called some names I'd be embarrassed to repeat in public," she said with a laugh. "My hairstyles and fashion choices provide endless fodder for public discussion and dissection."

While this was going on, a report on Hollywood fund-raising showed Clinton only slightly ahead of Obama, with most of her support coming from the older movie crowd.

Today she will be in Manhattan to address an Al Sharpton convention but, with the kind of luck she’s been having, Obama may get all the attention.

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