My old colleague John H. Mollenkopf -- we taught a course together at Harvard
on "Power" eons ago (yes, it was a sixties course) -- is director of the
Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of
New York. He told the Times that it is difficult to decipher
(and, I suppose, therefore to predict) the political leanings of the 30% of
the foreign born voters in the city.
Most of the new Americans to whom Timesman Manny Fernandez spoke, however,
seemed to favor Mrs. Clinton. One of them, from Bangladesh, explained
that, as Hernandez cited her, Hillary "is a strong woman who handled the
scandal involving her husband and Monica Lewinsky with courage and
grace." Or in her own words: "For her to sit there and be supportive
during that time, when she was humiliated in front of the whole world, she
must have a spine that's made out of steel, or else it would have cracked
under all that pressure." Of course, there are other ways to read
that...But let's leave it alone.
Another female immigrant from Cali, Colombia simply explained her voting on
Tuesday for Hillary, "Look at Argentina." This is not a happy analogy,
neither for Mrs. Clinton nor for President Kirchner.