Prominent Hillary Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell is coming under fire for suggesting that “ugly women” will help doom Donald Trump’s chances in November.
Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor, was making a point to The Washington Post about Trump’s untoward comments about unattractive women.
“Will he have some appeal to working-class Dems in Levittown or Bristol? Sure,” Rendell told the Post in a story published Wednesday. “For every one he’ll lose 1½, two Republican women. Trump’s comments like ‘You can’t be a 10 if you’re flat-chested,’ that’ll come back to haunt him. There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally.”
The comments were met with swift denunciation from Democrats and progressives.
Ian Millhiser, an editor for Think Progress, tweeted, “Can we all agree that Ed Rendell should never open his mouth again ever please?”
Doktor Zoom, responding to Rendell’s “people take that stuff personally” line, wrote for Wonkette, “Um. Why yes, we suppose people do. Can’t imagine why.”
And CNN contributor and Clinton supporter Bakari Sellers told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead”: “That was stupid. That was just outright stupid, asinine and ignorant.”
A message left with the Clinton campaign was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
This isn’t the first time Rendell has raised eyebrows with his comments on women.
“I do not have affairs with women,” Rendell told PhillyMag.com in 2010, “and it’s really unfair. It’s particularly unfair to attractive women. I should go out and find an unattractive woman to have an affair with.”
Trump’s advances on and remarks about women were thrust into the spotlight in a lengthy article in The New York Times this weekend, a story that Trump and his surrogates have loudly protested this week.
Trump has signaled that he plans to mount a strong challenge in Rendell’s Pennsylvania, where an early poll has shown him competitive. But super PACs supporting Clinton plan to raise concerns similar to those lodged by Rendell, unveiling this week a pair of advertisements that broadcast Trump’s comments about women’s physical appearances.
