Opinion

  Opinion  

KATHLEEN PARKER: CLINTON TRYING TO BE BEST 'MAN' FOR THE JOB

All politicians adapt and mold themselves to fit their audience, but Hillary Clinton has elevated the art of identity politics to a science of morphology.

She doesn't just show people what they want in order to convince them that she's their "man" -- and we no longer use that word entirely metaphorically. She becomes the people she wants to sway.

Clin-ton's life as a political spouse and candidate has been a kaleidoscope of shape-shifting and morphed identity. In the past 15 years, Americans have witnessed her transformation from a more feminine first lady to lately becoming a manly whiskey slugger with "testicular fortitude," as an Indiana labor leader recently described her.

In news stories and headlines, she's increasingly been described as tough, determined, gritty, a fighter. North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said Clinton made "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy."

In other incarnations throughout the campaign, Clinton has been whatever she needed to be. She can summon an African-American pastor's cadence in church or produce tears in a coffee shop surrounded by working gals who are tired, too.

Trying to appeal to the Second Amendment crowd, she remembers learning to shoot with her daddy. Trying to establish her regular-guy bona fides, she drinks with two fists, sipping a beer followed by a shot of Crown Royal.

Widely circulated photos show Clinton commuting to work with a sheet metal worker in his white pickup, and giving a speech from the back of a red pickup.

In Pennsylvania, where Clinton successfully courted the Catholic vote, she wore a saints bracelet easily recognizable to Catholics.

Impressive, if appalling. But most impressive of all has been Clinton's metamorphosis into a man. She isn't only the alpha dog. She's Cujo.

Should Clinton continue her run, Americans have a feast before them, as primaries remain in such manly states as Montana and South Dakota.

Kathleen Parker is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.