This email from a Democratic strategist to Time's Mark Halperin...
“There’s just no way she wins running as a victim. She and her team reflexively go there because it’s worked before. But this is different. She’s not the first lady. She’s an aspiring commander-in-chief. She can’t simultaneously put on boxing gloves and call herself the tough guy in the field (“i’m your girl”), ask for the keys to 1600 and the nuclear codes, and complain that Russert and boy candidates are being mean to her. She’s asking to be made the most powerful person in the world, and aggrieved victim isn’t part of that profile.”
...makes good sense logically. Indeed I think I agree with it. At the same time, I suspect this victim posture is aimed at women voters for whom it will resonate on some gut emotional level where the dissonance with wanting nuclear codes won't really register.
Moreover, if it does turn out that voters really dislike it when male opponents are rough on Hillary (as was apparently the case in her 2000 campaign against Rick Lazio), well... doesn't that bode quite well for her in the general?
--Michael Crowley