she's a powerful woman. she's also not the happy homemaker type who seems to have just fallen into politics (all an act, btw; Elizabeth Dole is every bit the operator her husband is, but she does a much better job at disguising this than the HRC-Bomb) -- she's very smart, very opinionated, and as much a political operative as anybody else in washington. there are clear double-standards in play here, where women in politics are encouraged to frame their political ambitions as extentions of their roles as mothers. if i had a dollar for every single time a Republican woman answered a question with the phrase, "well, speaking as a mother ..."
simply, it is unappetizing for a significant portion of the country for a women to be as careerist and opportunist as any man. we call these men ambitious; we call such women "bitch."