Concord, N.H.
At a rally before a few hundred people on Saturday, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright suggested that women who vote for Bernie Sanders are buying a one-way ticket to “a special place in Hell.”
“There are some that are out there that don’t understand the importance of why young women have to support Hillary Clinton,” Albright said as she stood next to Hillary Clinton inside the gymnasium of Rundlett Middle School. “The story is not over. They are going to want to push us back. Appointments to the Supreme Court make all the difference.”
“We tell our story about how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women don’t think you have to—it’s been done. It’s not done,” Albright continued. “And you have to help Hillary Clinton—[she] will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help each other.”
Albright’s scolding of young women came less than a week after voters under the age of 30 backed Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton by a staggering 70-point margin—84 percent to 14 percent. The Iowa caucus entrance poll didn’t break down results by both age and gender, but the topline number indicates Sanders must have carried young female voters in Iowa by a hefty margin.
Before the rally began in Concord, I worked my way through the crowd to see if there might be more enthusiasm for Clinton among young New Hampshire voters than there was in Iowa. The scene wasn’t encouraging for Clinton.
When I asked a group of four women who appeared to be in their twenties if they’d like to talk about why they’re supporting Clinton, they all declined to comment. When I asked the same question to the next two young voters I spotted, one replied apologetically, “We’re actually staff.” After working my way past a lot of middle-aged and gray-haired rallygoers, I finally found a few young people who wanted to talk about why they’re supporting Clinton without getting paid to do so.
“Definitely I’m supporting Hillary,” said Heather Doolin. “Definitely the experience plays into it. She has a little bit stricter opinions on gun control, and that’s like, I think, right now a really big issue.”
“I feel like for me Sanders is more idealistic, whereas Clinton is more realistic,” said Kendall Broseman. “And in a complex society it’s going to be hard to have free college tuition and raise the national minimum wage to $15 … because it’s going to be hard to pay for that.”
They said that their friends are pretty evenly divided between Clinton and Sanders. That sounded like good news for Clinton until they informed me that they are both 17 years old and attend high school in Westchester, New York. Their Advanced Placement class has simply taken a field trip to New Hampshire for the weekend.
I’m sure there were some young people in the crowd who will actually be able to vote for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Tuesday. But Clinton’s stump speech didn’t seem to do much to inspire the under-30 set.
She discussed the poetry of Maya Angelou and later talked about her failed efforts to pass universal health care coverage. “Remember, before they called it Obamacare, they called it Hillarycare,” Clinton said.
There was also a whiff of entitlement as Clinton suggested she was doing a great favor to the citizens of the United States by running for president. “I spent my whole life trying to knock down barriers,” she said. “I never thought I would run for elective office, let alone run for president. But I always believed that service is the rent we pay for living in our country.”
Clinton issued a call to take on special interests, but that call rang hollow the weekend after Democratic debates focused on the exorbitant speaking fees Clinton received from Goldman Sachs. “We have to knock down the barriers erected by greed, special interests, powerful forces,” she said. “We have to take them on. I know a lot about that. They’ve been after me for decades. And you know what? I’m still standing.”
As Clinton got close to wrapping up her speech, through a window I saw two elderly women who were leaving the event early. One stopped and fell on her back to the blacktop. Thankfully a member of the security team rendered aid within seconds and called for further assistance. By the time I got outside several minutes later, the woman was back on her feet. A police officer suggested she had simply been standing for too long.
