Hillary Clinton seeks to garner support from baseball fans

Is this her action aimed at garnering votes, or display her lifelong affection for the team as a devoted fan?

A photo of U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has become a hot topic of conversation among baseball fans. Hillary in the photo is seen completely surprised staring at a smartphone in campaign plane. Nick Merrill, Hillary’s aide for press affairs, uploaded on Twitter a picture and comment, reading "That look when you cap off a day on the trail by watching the @Cubs cement their trip to the #WorldSeries."

Hillary Clinton was born in the outskirts of Chicago in 1947, two years after the Chicago Cubs last advanced to the World Series. Like many children of her age, Hillary grew up watching baseball games, and would often say, “I always liked the Cubs although the team often tested by patience.” In her memoir, Hillary said that cheering for the Cubs’ rival Chicago White Sox in my village had been almost like a sin of blasphemy, demonstrating her strong affection for the Cubs.

When she was running for the New York Senator in 2000, however, she made electioneering speeches wearing a New York Yankees cap. “When young, I rooted for both the Cubs and the Yankees. I needed a team to root for in the American League,” she said in an apparent bid to defend her acts.

U.S. presidential election campaigns always coincide with the schedule of the Major League Baseball’s postseason, and baseball often becomes an important issue in campaigning. When Philadelphia faced off Tampa Bay in the World Series in 2008, then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama watched the game in Philadelphia’s spectators stand, saying that he was there to cheer for Philadelphia because the White Sox (that I root for) failed to advance to the playoffs. But hardly 10 days passed before he joked that he was agonizing over whether to have Mohican hairstyle (which was in vogue among Tampa Bay fans at the time) at a site of his election campaigning in Florida. His rival Republican candidate John McCain blasted Obama, saying that when electioneering in Philadelphia, Obama cheers for the Phillies, and when campaigning in Tampa Bay, he roots for Tamp Bay.

Only Hillary herself should know whether she is a fan of the Yankees or the Cubs. However, what is clear is that she is losing votes in Cleveland.

임보미기자 bom@donga.com