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The esteemed political writer Charlie Cook recently produced a column titled Is Hillary Clinton Too Old to Run? Despite couching his thoughts with a mention that if Clinton were to run, she would be the same age as Ronald Reagan when he was first elected president, 69, he did venture over the sexism line.

The giveaway came toward the end when Cook noted that Clinton could be challenged for the nomination by Vice President Joe Biden, without noting Bidens age. Biden is almost five years older than she is.

In response to the raised eyebrows, Cooks next column was headlined Is Joe Biden Too Old to Run? In it, Cook explained that the Clinton column was not about the vice president. True, but it was about the age of presidential candidates, wasnt it?

Both men and women face age discrimination, but its no secret that for women, ageism mixes easily with sexism. And obsessing over a womans year of birth is often a slightly more respectable substitute for the latter.

Of course, age can be a consideration as it relates to questions of health. The best approach is to take the candidates one at a time. Frankly, Id rather be insuring 71-year-old Joe Biden than 51-year-old Chris Christie, New Jerseys overweight governor and an oft-mentioned presidential candidate (though not so much these days).

The point is that age arguments get dumped on women without much reflection. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the late Christopher Hitchens famously dismissed Clinton as an aging and resentful female. Even some liberal supporters of President Obama were not above making outrageously ageist/sexist remarks.

I dont recall similar conversations on another presidential candidate running in 2008 and again in 2012 Republican Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor remains a vigorous man, and if he wanted to run again, why would his vintage be an issue?

True, Clinton is not the same age as Romney. Shes seven months younger.

Cook pointed out that Clinton did suffer an episode of fainting after a grueling travel schedule as secretary of state. Fair enough. But then he went on to discuss Bill Clintons heart surgery, adding that while he looks healthy, presidential campaigns are team efforts.

Again, was anyone raising such concerns about Romneys wife, Ann, who had been diagnosed with both multiple sclerosis and breast cancer? She actually shared her medical story on the campaign trail, a not-bad political strategy.

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Hillary Clinton is too old for what?

Feb. 20--Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have a dominant lead in Ohio in a presidential contest against seven leading Republicans if the election were held now, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Mrs. Clinton tops New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie by 49 percent to 36 percent in an early look at the 2016 presidential race in this critical swing state.

That's an improvement from a Nov. 27 survey -- prior to Mr. Christie's bridge scandal -- that showed Mrs. Clinton at 42 percent, with Mr. Christie at 41 percent.

She would also defeat five other top GOP contenders, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, according to the independent poll by the Connecticut university polling center. She would get 51 percent of the vote against Mr. Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and U.S. Sens. Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Ted Cruz (Texas). U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (Florida) would hold Mrs. Clinton to 50 percent and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) holds her to 49 percent.

Ohio voters say, by 55 percent to 39 percent, that Mrs. Clinton would make a good president. No Republican listed gets a positive score on the question. Governor Kasich got a negative score -- 34 percent to 47 percent. Mr. Christie gets a big negative, 31 percent to 48 percent, compared to a positive 44 percent to 32 percent result in the November poll.

"The George Washington Bridge is not in Ohio, but voters there seem very aware of its traffic problems -- and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's traffic problems," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"Of Republicans tested, Wisconsin's Paul Ryan runs best in Ohio against the former Secretary of State and Gov. John Kasich runs relatively well. But Mrs. Clinton remains far and away the leader at this point in Ohio," Mr. Brown said.

"When Quinnipiac University asked Ohioans in November about Governor Christie vs. Secretary Hillary Clinton in a 2016 White House race, the two were in a dead heat and voters thought he would make a good president. Today, she enjoys a comfortable double-digit lead and voters say Christie would not be a good president."

The breakdown on the question of who Ohioans would vote for in a race with Mrs. Clinton, according to Quinnipiac, was 51 percent to 36 percent over Mr. Bush, 50 percent to 36 percent over Mr. Rubio, 51 percent to 38 percent over Mr. Paul, 49 percent to 40 percent over Mr. Ryan, 51 percent to 34 percent over Mr. Cruz, and 51 -- 39 percent over Mr. Kasich.

Ohio voters give President Barack Obama a negative 40 percent to 55 percent job approval rating, an improvement on his negative 34 percent to 61 percent score in November.

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Hillary Clinton Would Clobber GOP in Ohio: Quinnipiac

Former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey leaves federal court in Washington on March 10,...

Kathleen Willey is back. For people who have forgotten, she was a volunteer aide to former President Clinton who claims he sexually harassed her 20 years ago. She wrote a book about it called Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

What, you say you didnt read it? Neither, it seems, did most of America, which long ago yawned at Bill Clintons exploits and Hillarys apparent enabling of his extramarital liaisons.

Willey is telling anyone who will listen that Hillary Clinton is the war on women because of the way she treated her and the other women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment. Remember bimbo eruptions, a term coined by Clinton aide Betsey Wright, who was charged with monitoring them and then discrediting accusers?

On WABC's "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" show (as reported on the conservative website WND.com), Willey said this about Hillary Clinton: The point is what this woman is capable of doing to other women while she's running a campaign basically on women's issues. ... She singlehandedly orchestrated every one of the investigations of all these women [who accused her husband of sexual crimes]. They're the people reminding us of how sordid this all is.

Willey vowed to go back to all the sordid details if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016.

Is this strategy likely to sway many, if any, female votes? I doubt it. People long ago made their judgments on the Clintons and decided his (and her) behavior about infidelity was a private matter. Besides, the rules such as they are about most matters involving sex, at least for some liberals, are even looser now than they were 20 years ago.

If conservatives and Republicans think resurrecting this old news will bring them electoral victory against Hillary Clinton, should she decide to run, they are mistaken. Dredging up the past may help them raise money, but it wont raise Republican votes. In fact, such a strategy could backfire as Mrs. Clinton would again be portrayed as a victim by a sympathetic media. Having forgiven her husband, those mean Republicans want to assault her again.

Republicans have a lot of problems, but chief among them is that they are known more for what they are against. They hate President Obama, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Some Republicans don't even like each other. What and who do they like? What are they for? Where are examples of their policies working -- creating jobs, improving lives, lowering deficits and taxes, cutting spending and reducing the size and reach of government? (Hint: States have the answer, not Washington.)

The number of electoral votes needed to win a presidential election is 270. Electoral votes for Republican presidential candidates have steadily declined since Ronald Reagan's impressive 1984 victory over Walter Mondale. In that blowout election, Reagan carried 49 out of the 50 states and received a record 525 electoral votes out of a possible 538. It's been downhill for Republicans ever since.

Continued here:

Bashing Hillary Clinton won't help GOP win in 2016

Exclusive: The Democrats sound self-satisfied that there is so little internal opposition to Hillary Clinton for President, but this rush to a coronation is ignoring questions about her judgment as a New York Senator and Secretary of State and whether she is prone to war, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

As President Barack Obama tries to pick his way through a minefield of complex foreign policy issues from Irans nuclear program to the Syrian civil war to Israeli-Palestinian peace to unrest in Ukraine he is beset by incessant criticism from much of Official Washington which still retains the neocon influences of the last two decades.

Indeed, the failure to impose any meaningful accountability on Republicans, Democrats, senior editors and think-tank analysts who cheered on the Iraq War disaster makes it hard to envision how President Obama can navigate this maze of difficult negotiations and trade-offs needed to resolve conflicts in the worlds hot spots.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Successful negotiations require both an objective assessment of ground truth, i.e. a cold-eyed view of the actual power relationships between the disputing parties, and flexibility, i.e. the readiness to make concessions that accommodate the realistic needs of the two sides.

Yet, Official Washington has become a place of tough-guy/gal bluster where the only purpose of negotiations is for the anti-U.S. side to come in and surrender. That is why the likes of Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt is always calling for the U.S. to issue military ultimatums to disfavored foreign leaders, giving them the choice of doing what theyre told or facing U.S. attack.

We saw the same attitude before President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003: Bushs escalating demands that Saddam Hussein surrender his stockpiles of WMD, American outrage when the Iraqigovernment insisted that the WMD no longer existed, and then the need to respond to Iraqs arrogance and intransigence by going to war to protect U.S. credibility.

The fact thatIraq was telling the truth about its lack of WMD did not lead to mass firings of Official Washingtons opinion leaders, nor seriousconsequences for politicians who collaborated in this war crime. Bush won reelection; most of the war hawks kept their seats in Congress; and Hiatt and the other neocon media personalities remained employed.

Odds-on Favorite

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Hillary Clintons Unlearned Lessons

By Mark Murray

Its strange to think Republicans would be eager to applaud the political achievements and strengths of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But in their efforts to ding President Barack Obama over the last few years, theyve done just that. The idea: put the Clintons on a pedestal to show that the current administration doesnt live up to their legacy.

With Hillary Clinton posed to make her own bid for the White House in 2016, all those recent compliments could come back to haunt Republicans even as they pivot to revive their attacks from the 1990s.

She might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with. I have the sense that she's one of the more competent members of the current administration.

Take former Vice President Dick Cheney, who not too long ago praised the competency of the former secretary of state. "She might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with, he told Fox News in 2011, adding, I have the sense that she's one of the more competent members of the current administration.

And the plaudits continued for both Clintons:

But as the next presidential election inches closer, some of these same Republicans who praised the Clintons have changed their tune:

It marks a decided shift in strategy as Republicans home in on potential 2016 contenders and put Obama in the rearview.

First published February 19 2014, 1:17 PM

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GOP's Clinton-Lauding Strategy May Backfire