How is Hillary Clintons presidential campaign being perceived differently than past women candidates for the office?
Gutgold: Her campaign has a different look, feel and sound to it. As a rhetorician, that’s what I look at. Hillary’s is very different for a number of reasons. One of them is that there is simply not an emphasis on her gender by any of the media, by her or by the other candidates. I don’t know when that shift occurred, because in 2004 Carol Mosley Braun made a bid, and granted it did not have the momentum that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has. But still in 2004 there was this, “Oh, and she’s a woman” message. I just don’t get that sense with this campaign. One of the things that I think has contributed to that is that most of the candidates are similarly experienced. For example, I’m thinking of Bob Dole, someone who is such a Washington institution. The quintessential appearance of a politician — tall, older, experienced, been in Washington for a quarter of a century — none of the [Democratic] candidates really has that background. I also would think because you have Barack Obama, ano
