'Exceedingly BAD': WaPo raises eyebrows with this 'analysis' of Cynthia Nixon's campaign

Sarah D | 12:47 PM on March 21, 2018

Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial bid has taken the country by storm. Which means we can look forward to an embarrassment of hot take riches. The Washington Post isn’t wasting any time:

Analysis | What does Cynthia Nixon’s run for governor mean for single women?#SATC #addwomenchangepolitics https://t.co/PEDccSxmX4

— Chelsey Smith (@chelseysm1th) March 21, 2018

Yeah … about that:

…Cynthia Nixon is married pic.twitter.com/PP0J38lkDG

— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) March 21, 2018

She is indeed.

'Layers and layers of fact checkers and editors…' https://t.co/WaFVpjNndQ

— Dodd (@Amuk3) March 21, 2018

To be fair, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, the author of the piece, does acknowledge that Nixon is married … but she seems to also kinda think that Nixon is actually her “Sex and the City” alter-ego Miranda:

With a record number of women running for office in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential loss, it feels right that TV’s patron saint of liberated, modern women would be among them. Even so, as a candidate, Nixon is a threat to the status quo, as much as her character was back in 1998. Her character was a sarcastic, feminist, successful lawyer who wasn’t interested in finding a man to marry. Nixon herself is a longtime education and marriage-equality activist who is married to a woman (and fellow activist) and has a degree from Barnard. Much has been and will continue to be made of her celebrity status as a somehow disqualifying trait. (Never mind governors Reagan and Schwarzenegger.) But it’s clear that a vote for her is not a vote for the patriarchy.

Her candidacy also demonstrates that women have come a long way since the time when a show about smart, independent women like “Sex and the City” routinely defanged itself politically to maintain its mainstream appeal. As its most egregious example, please see the scene in which the women “discuss politics” because Carrie is dating a local politician played by John Slattery. Carrie unapologetically reveals she isn’t registered to vote, and Samantha offers what passes for political insight: “The country runs better with a good-looking man in the White House. I mean, look at what happened to Nixon. No one wanted to f–k him, so he f–ked everyone.” No relation, of course, to our Cynthia Nixon.

Single women are still largely absent from politics, where a spouse is nearly a prerequisite for candidacy. And Nixon won’t change that. But her symbolism in the world of single women brings them a little closer into the fold. The more she’s taken seriously as a candidate, the more that will indicate that ambition, fun and politics can coexist without canceling each other out.