The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

The Texas Two-Step

It's a cool, bright morning here in West Texas. Folks in Marfa, Texas, where I've paused en route to El Paso, are out voting and preparing to caucus. Most of the people I've talked to have already voted—Texas offers early voting. Most are planning to caucus later tonight. The Texas primary—as everyone's been saying—is unusual in that voters can both vote and caucus if they show up at the evening caucuses with a voter-registration slip. Effectively, your vote can be counted twice. This has come to be known as the "Texas two-step." Some people here are worried about another form of two-stepping, you might say: As Politico flagged earlier this week, the Dallas Morning News apparently got a peek at Clinton's "training materials," which apparently tell volunteers, "DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles."

I've been a Hillary defender on this blog in the past—and I'm the first to be frustrated by the latent sexism that has permeated so much of the election coverage. But I find it strange that the sexism meme is hitting a high now—and that CNN spent so much time this morning analyzing their so-called "fairness" to Hillary. Over the past few weeks, Hillary has trotted out all sorts of hardball tactics—the "Shame on You" moment; the satirical imitation of Obama; these reported caucus shenanigans; and, last but not least, the gender card, which she has used without shame, most notably (and ineffectively) in the Ohio debate, where she whined that she "always" got the first question. The problem with playing the victim and crying gender as frequently as she's been doing of late is that it degrades the power of that claim for the rest of us. She wants to be a leader. She can't worry every time a knock comes that it's a sexist one. I wish I could say I felt that she's just calling it where she sees it—which I'd be the first to defend. But watching the vagaries of the campaign these last few days, I've had the uneasy sense that she's stressing the hardships of being a woman as a cheap campaign strategy. I hope I'm wrong.