Are sexist Democrats Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon?

This has nothing to do with what this site is about — although, really, what is this site about? So here goes.

I’ve listened/read/watched with some interest as people have debated how to count Hillary Clinton’s White House experience. She was First Lady — but maybe she also did really substantial stuff? Some say yes, some say no.

But at least twice now I’ve heard interviews on NPR with “regular voter” types who are supporting Hillary Clinton, who have made very different point about her White House connection. One was I think on Latino USA, the other on one of the daily shows, Day to Day, or maybe All Things Considered. (I’m not always taking notes.) What these voters — in one case a man, and in another case a couple (man and woman) — all said was in essence: Well, if she’s there, she’s got Bill with her, and he’s done this before.

The implication seems to be that Bill will either secretly run the show, or at the very least use his experience to keep his wife from making any dumb mistakes.

In other words, the point isn’t whether or not Hillary Clinton is particularly capable and has a track record that proves it. The point is that she’s married to someone with a track record.

This is not a very enlightened reason to back the person who would be our first woman president. In fact, ever since I heard the couple talking about how Bill would be there and that’s why they were voting for Hillary, I’ve thought: “Isn’t that actually a fairly sexist attitude?”

I wonder how widespread this rationale might be? I certainly don’t think the Clinton campaign has pushed the “you get Bill, too” line very hard since early in the campaign, when the press’s take is that Bill had to get to the background because he was saying things that were hurting the campaign overall. And maybe he was, with some voters.

But meanwhile, what about voters like these people? Aren’t they likely to shrug off doubts about whether Sen. Clinton’s “experience” as First Lady really amounts to anything? And aren’t they like to shrug it off for, you know, pretty bad reasons? They don’t care about her experience anyway — they’re evidently voting for her because of him.

Maybe I’m just reading too much into a couple of randomly heard NPR interviews. Or maybe this has been dealt with elsewhere in articles I’ve missed. But I wonder.