Hillary Clinton’s handling of Caitlyn Jenner shows her level-headed political brilliance

Hillary Clinton’s handling of Caitlyn Jenner shows her level-headed political brilliance
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/hillary-clintons-handling-of-caitlyn-jenner-shows-her-level-headed-political-brilliance/24148/comment-page-1/#comment-40334




When the week began, longtime conservative Caitlyn Jenner was voicing her support for the republicans, while launching personal attacks at Hillary Clinton. By the time the week ended, Jenner was posting a selfie she’d just taken with Clinton. It wasn’t a complete reversal of Jenner’s position, but it was a remarkably quick softening of her views. For all the talk of Hillary Clinton not being a naturally gifted politician in front of the cameras, the incident revealed just how adept she is behind the scenes – and how little she cares about getting her feelings hurt.

Hillary quickly seized on what many of us had recognized: Caitlyn Jenner is in a tricky position. She still holds many of the same conservative republican views that she always has. But now that she’s become one of the de facto faces of the LGBT movement, she’s struggling with the fact that most of her own party leaders hold distinctly anti-LGBT views. She’s also facing backlash from the LGBT community, and from her fellow transgender people, for trying to cling to her longtime conservative beliefs. That means Hillary was in a position to help out Caitlyn while helping herself.

We don’t know exactly what happened behind the scenes, but the end result was Caitlyn Jenner posting a picture of herself with her arm around Hillary Clinton, along with the hashtag “willing to listen.” Presumably, Hillary asked for a meeting between the two. Whatever they discussed, the end result is that Caitlyn’s public posts about Hillary are suddenly a whole lot softer and less damaging than they were when she was using phrases like “political hack” when the week began.

In the end, the public and the LGBT community will decide the fate of Caitlyn Jenner, whether or not she gets to be a leader of the community while she’s endorsing republicans, and whether or not being seen with Hillary will help her in that regard. But either way it’s not Hillary’s problem. Her problem was that a famous woman was running around saying terrible things about her. Instead of sulking over hurt feelings, or trying to publicly face off with the accusations that Caitlyn was hurling at her, Hillary simply decided to tamp things down with her behind the scenes.

And so now a prominent figure who was working against Hillary’s election effort has been turned into someone who, at worst, is taking a more neutral and conciliatory position toward her. No one should be holding their breath for a Caitlyn Jenner endorsement of Hillary Clinton any time soon. But that part doesn’t matter, and it wasn’t the point anyway. Hillary knew that Caitlyn was in need of a life raft, threw her one, and took an enemy off the board. It’s how diplomacy works. And it’s a small example of why Hillary is so capable of getting things done behind the scenes in general.