So Hillary's campaign has Huma Abedin as a high ranking official, and I was really confused by this because by all accounts she is an awful person to have on one's team. She is married to that doofus Anthony Weiner, she is Muslim (there is nothing wrong with being Muslim, but voters can be really prejudice), and there are a ton of rumours about her family having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (all of which are baseless and dumb, but still damaging).
But despite all of this, Hillary has her on board, even though I can smell how badly she wants to win from here. The reason this is though, that she's basically her sidekick.
Holy shit to all of this. I don't follow U.S. politics all that much, but this is kind of fascinating to me. I don't know how to look at this; has Hillary raised this woman as her daughter for the past 20 years without people even realizing it, or did she create a servant?
EDIT: Wow, that "Did she create a servant bit" was idiotic. I meant something more inoffensive in that, but I'll live with this mistake.
EDIT2: "By all accounts" was another idiotic mistake of mine. I meant by "PR" standards. Ugh, this is not my day.
But despite all of this, Hillary has her on board, even though I can smell how badly she wants to win from here. The reason this is though, that she's basically her sidekick.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-2016-campaign-huma-abedin-119671.html
Just a few feet away from Clinton dressed in a classic tweed navy shift, Huma Abedin, 39, moved through the crowd tracking her boss. Abedin, Clinton’s longest-serving aide, chatted breezily with acquaintances. But like a mother monitoring her child on the playground, she never let Clinton drift out of her line of sight, ever vigilant and poised to act.
After decades of rope lines — she started working for Clinton as a 19-year-old intern in the First Lady’s office — the role of body woman comes naturally to Abedin, and her hovering presence there, a few feet away from the candidate, is what normal feels like for Clinton.
Some political observers have expressed surprise that after all these years, Abedin is still at it. In 2013, Abedin briefly took a hiatus from Clinton world to try on a different role: supportive campaign spouse, speaking and appearing with her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, in a video kicking off his New York City mayoral run and campaigning for him in the city. But after Weiner’s bid self-combusted amid sexting revelations, Abedin seemed to pick up right where she left off: gearing up for another tour with Clinton. And another grueling national campaign.
The road is typically a younger staffer’s gig, but there she was on the Chipotle security tape footage, standing next to Clinton as she ordered her now famous burrito bowl on the way to Iowa. When Clinton flew first class from Boston to Washington in April, it was Abedin who sat with the former secretary of state. During a photo shoot with Glamour magazine last summer to promote Clinton’s memoir, “Hard Choices,” Abedin was also on set, making sure the couch was firm enough not to swallow up Clinton, and holding up outfits for her to choose, a source recalled.
...
When she is on the trail, Abedin has taken on an expansive set of duties. On trips to South Carolina, for instance, which Clinton visited last week to attend the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Abedin has held two private meetings with South Carolina state legislators on her boss’s behalf.
When Clinton got stuck in traffic on her way to a meeting with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio — who since the meeting has refused to endorse her campaign — Abedin met with him one-on-one for 45 minutes before Clinton eventually appeared.
...
“With the miles and days on the road, you become family,” said Phil Gordon, former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, who worked closely with Abedin at the State Department.“Hillary Clinton has seen her grow over the past 20 years. The two of them have probably spent more time with each other than with their families.”
...
“Huma doesn’t need this,” said Tom Nides, a deputy secretary of state under Clinton who remains a trusted adviser. “She could do a whole variety of things. She could make more money, and she could have left a long time ago. She really, really believes in Hillary Clinton.”
Holy shit to all of this. I don't follow U.S. politics all that much, but this is kind of fascinating to me. I don't know how to look at this; has Hillary raised this woman as her daughter for the past 20 years without people even realizing it, or did she create a servant?
EDIT: Wow, that "Did she create a servant bit" was idiotic. I meant something more inoffensive in that, but I'll live with this mistake.
EDIT2: "By all accounts" was another idiotic mistake of mine. I meant by "PR" standards. Ugh, this is not my day.