Hillary Clinton is down to perhaps her final days in the race. It is rather obvious that she is making a last appeal to women to stick with her and rescue her from defeat, as they did in New Hampshire. In the debate on Tuesday, her complaint about having to answer questions first and her defense that her attacks on Barack Obama were merely an example of “standing up for myself” bespoke a woe-is-me victimhood, aimed, I think, at women (who, she would have us believe always have it tougher). Last night in a PBS News Hour interview with Judy Woodruff there was this exchange when Woodruff asked if it would be different to have a woman president:

MRS. CLINTON: I don’t think we can adequately imagine the difference it would make. It would be the shattering of the highest and hardest glass ceiling and it would send such a message of hope and opportunity to every little girl, to every young woman. That’s probably the most common thing that people say to me out on the campaign trail. There’s two things, actually, one people say I’m here because of my daughter, or my little girl just learned that we never had a woman president and I want her the know that she can do anything.
It would be a very deep change in how people see themselves and who is able to fulfill this position and I think that –
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you want people to vote for you for that reason?
MRS. CLINTON: No. I have said consistently throughout this campaign and I have asked people not to vote for me solely because I’m a woman. But I am a woman and I think there has been an interesting development in the campaign where somehow we are expected not to talk about that, where as it is a big difference. We have never had a mother or wife or sister or daughter in the Oval Office and I think it would be a very big change.

It seems hard to believe that this transparent bit of double talk–don’t vote for me just because I’m a woman, but gosh we’ve never had a mom be president–would bring home the female vote. Indeed, like many of her themes (e.g. experience) she seems to be making an argument few are receptive to. (If asked to name the top ten or even twenty problems in America I doubt “gender discrimination” would make the list.) So once again she is making a tepid appeal, a half-hearted plea out of a worn playbook, that seems somehow beside the point. It’s hardly surprising that she is now behind in one of her must-win states.