A new phase of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is about to kick off in which Democrats and feminists accuse Republicans of picking on the former secretary of state because she's a woman, says Fred Barnes, executive editor and co-founder of The Weekly Standard.
"We're heading now to a period where she is going to start being a victim of these mean men that keep picking on her and making accusations about her," Barnes said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"Most of the Democratic Party will chime in and the whole feminist establishment, and they'll treat her as someone who is being unfairly attacked by men, heaven's sakes, men!
"Hillary and all her allies and handlers … will love that because it will change the story. She does not want the story to be on the scandals she's involved in: Benghazi, the deleted emails, and the whole question of foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation even while she was secretary of state."
Still, Barnes — co-author with Morton Kondracke of the biography,
"Jack Kemp: The Bleeding-Heart Conservative Who Changed America," to be published in September by Sentinel — says Clinton is a "formidable candidate" who knows how to dodge and weave.
"The way the Clintons operate in a case like this, they don't appear and don't allow questions to be asked and they just hope that time will turn the media on to other subjects and they'll forget about it," Barnes said.
"They're counting on the press having attention deficit disorder, among other things.
"The Clintons will say, well, we dealt with that, that's just history, we need to deal now with the future here in the campaign, and the press will fall for it."
Asked about Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard who says she is close to announcing a run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Barnes said:
"Carly Fiorina doesn't have the kind of experience that you would expect for somebody running for president … political experience, but I tell you, she's a great speaker," he said.
She's somebody that when she criticizes Hillary, being a woman, it drives Hillary and all the Hillary establishment crazy. So, she's an important player, no question about that."
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