Bill Clinton is NOT Running in the 2016 Election

Editor’s Note: All articles for Her Campus OR State are the opinions and beliefs of the writers and do not reflect Her Campus OR State, the Oregon State University or Her Campus as an international magazine

When watching political debates or political commentary one may start to get confused with who is actually running for president. Although we have our two major candidates, one person’s name is brought up enough that you may start to think he is running himself. No it is not Gary Johnson, or even Vermin Supreme (look him up), but rather former President Bill Clinton.

When talking about Secretary Hillary Clinton as a candidate, the name Bill Clinton is almost always shortly to follow. He is almost brought up more in conversation than Hillary Clinton’s actual running mate Tim Kaine. It seems that Hillary Clinton is forced to spend a good chunk of her time talking about her husband, and his past. A prime example of this comes from Wallace’s question in the third debate,

“Mr. Trump, at the last debate, you said your talk about grabbing women was just that, talk, and that you’d never actually done it. And since then, as we all know, nine women have come forward and said that you either groped them or kissed them without their consent. Why would so many different women from so many different circumstances over so many different years, why would they all in this last couple of weeks make up — you deny this. Why would they make up these stories? And since this is a question for both of you, secretary Clinton, Mr. Trump says what your husband did and what you defended was even worse. Mr. Trump, you go first.”

It is almost baffling that this was a legitimate question in a Presidential debate, that we have come to a point that we are talking about scandal rather than policy in presidential debate. However, if we look at this question we can see a glaring problem. While Donald Trump was asked to defend and justify himself, Hillary Clinton was asked to defend and justify her husband as well as herself.

Throughout Hillary’s election Bill has been brought up a lot to either validate or invalidate Hillary Clinton. For example people who support Hillary often say “well I was lot richer when Bill was President,” while those who oppose Hillary say “If Bill didn’t want Hillary, why should I”? The problem in both of these scenarios is you are using man to express your feelings about a female.

This kind of sexist tactic, of validating/invalidating female’s with the male’s they interact with, has been used for years in all areas society.

Asking Hillary to defend her husband was unacceptable because she shouldn’t have to do such a thing. Her husband made those mistakes, NOT HER. Her husband was the one who was impeached NOT HER. Hillary is running for President NOT Bill. Asking her to address her husband’s past and how she reacted is not only irrelevant to this election but is a perpetuation of this sexist idea that a woman’s value is directly linked to a man’s.  

Also just because Hillary and Bill share a bed and may talk about political issues in the future does not mean she has to listen to what he says. Hillary is educated enough to make her own decisions on issues, seeing as she has been in the political game almost as long as Bill has. A women doesn’t need a hand from a man to make decisions, and if anyone was the embodiment of that statement it would be Secretary Clinton.

So next time you are watching the news and everyone starts talking about Bill Clinton not being fit to return to the white house remember…

*BILL CLINTON IS NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT*

• 2016 election
• Bill Clinton
• Breaking News
• election
• elections
• Hillary Clinton
• November 8th