Hillary Clinton seems to have everything going for her. She is considered the only serious Democrat running for the presidency, beats every Republican expected to enter the race, and is set to have $2.5 billion backing her, more than double what Democrats spent getting President Obama re-elected.
But new concerns are being raised that the media is using “sexist coverage” to knock her down.
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The group Ultra Violet, which fights sexism and is run by a former MoveOn organizer, cites the New York Times and Politico among the outlets using sexist language to undercut Clinton’s campaign rollout.
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“Clinton faces hurdles no previous frontrunner has ever faced — simply because she is a woman,” said co-founders Nita Chaudhary and Shaunna Thomas in a memo provided to Secrets.
And it’s not just Clinton. Armed with media reports and polls, the group said that 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and 2014 Texas senatorial candidate Wendy Davis were undercut by a sexist media.
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Their memo said that the press often draws attention to appearances and demeanor instead of policy when covering women.
“For any female candidate to have a fair shot at winning the presidency, the media must be aware of the ways in which it makes it harder for female candidates to succeed, and the subtle but pernicious sexism that creeps into seemingly neutral coverage from the very start of a campaign,” they warned.
This first appeared in the weekly Washington Examiner.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.
