Due to exigent living circumstances, my mail is a bit behind, and I never got my sample ballot (in fact, I had to check by text with my father which freeholders we were mad at, while in the booth), so I didn't notice until I was in the voting booth, but the top of the ballot had on the GOP side, "Donald J Trump" & "Michael R Pence". But the Democrats had "Hillary Rodham Clinton" & "Timothy Michael Kaine". I can't ever remember seeing the middle name of the candidate on the ballot like that. I'm morally certain the Democrats did NOT include the candidates' middle name on the last two presidential ballots. The obvious reason this time was so Clinton could go on the ballot as Hillary Rodham Clinton, which people may recall from 24 years ago, is her preferred moniker. The campaign suddenly announced after winning the election in '92 that she was to be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton, once their win was in the bag and she could ditch the hairbands and stop being nice. But the "Rodham" disappeared in her Senate campaign either year later, and has not been seen since, presumably since the Democrats believe their feminist nonsense about people hating such displays of feminine independence. My first thought was that she knew she was going down and wanted to do so flying her flag, but the other interpretation is that she was just that confident or maybe she didn't care one way or another, and was going to run under her preferred name.

I personally don't see what is so fulfilling about rejecting the name of your chosen life partner in favor of your patriarchal slave name, nor why she would think that the name "Clinton" is good enough for her daughter, but not for herself (I can totally understand not wanting to share the name of her particular husband, especially in light of his treatment of her). For that matter, I don't know why Chelsea isn't "Rodham Clinton". Why not use her mother's name instead of her father's?

But back to my titular observation, Bill has managed an impressive winning streak, and you pretty much have to credit her Senate election in 2000 to him as well, since there is no way some Chicago-by-way-of-Arkansas lawyer would have been allowed to cut the line of the NY Democratic Party unless she was married to the sitting president. Hillary seems, with her bizarre fixation on the Rodham name, to be ashamed of, or regret the customs that induce her to bear, the Clinton name, but as the face of its biggest political defeat ever, maybe she should rethink which of those names has done more for her and which has caused her more mockery.