Hillary's hawkishness

Dana again on Hillary Clinton: "I don't think "femininity" will be a problem for Clinton, who voters know is more hawkish that the other leading Democrats on national security."

Whatever the effect on her perceived femininity--and whatever impact that has on her electability--voters emphatically do not know that she's the most hawkish Democratic contender.

This all seems pretty simple to me. Hillary Clinton is both a mainstream progressive on women's issues and a war hawk at the same time. In a sane world, her stance on women's issues would be a fine issue--perhaps the main one, but hopefully one among many--on which she'd base her candidacy to be the presidential nominee for America's supposedly liberal party. Instead--because politicians just assume people think, as a trump issue, we should be a belligerent country--Hillary has decided that her good issue is poison. So she never talks about it, and chooses instead to focus on her bad issue, with the hope that people won't dismiss her for being a woman.

The twist, though, is that liberal voters, despite her best efforts to convince them otherwise, like Hillary because they think she's the best anti-war candidate. If I was Hillary Clinton, I might take stock of that. I'd probably try to soften the militancy and embrace my progressive social views, in order not to find myself too tightly hewed to overheated rhetoric and impulsive military action during my actual presidency. But, then again, this is a bizarre world we live in.