Lena Dunham was the first woman in the restaurant to say “vagina” and the only one to boast that her underwear said “feminist” or that she had been called a dirty name on Fox News. Without a doubt, this made her the best Hillary Clinton messenger in New Hampshire on Friday.
Dunham had traveled north to stand under technicolor portraits of rotund nudes and a drink menu printed on a cutout mustache. It was her first day campaigning for the only Democratic woman running for president. And as Clinton’s saleswoman and ambassador, the 29-year-old actress, author and Girls creator gave herself free rein to say things that the 68-year old candidate never would.
“Nothing gets me angrier than when somebody implies that I’m voting for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman,” Dunham told a packed crowd with only a few men. “It’s not like we have some feminist version of beer goggles called ‘estrogen lens’ that just causes us to go walking up to the nearest vagina and vote for them.”
For a campaign that is focused in large part around motivating millennials—particularly millennial woman—the outspoken Dunham is the rabbit’s foot Clinton desperately needs as she faces the final weeks before the New Hampshire primary. A Fox News poll Friday found that her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, had 50% of the likely primary vote, compared to her 37% share, and some of her supporters say privately that she could lose the state. One of Clinton campaign’s big challenges is convincing fickle post-Cold War babies, for whom Dunham has become both a symbol and voice, to vote for a woman two generations older.
It will be a challenge, as Clinton exists in a world distant from the Dunham’s Girls audience. She does not drive a car, rarely speaks off script and almost never overshares her most personal thoughts on social media. Far from the red carpet, she has occupied the privileged corridors of Washington for decades. Clinton’s popularity among millennials nationwide is underwater, with 44% saying they view Clinton favorably and 48% unfavorably. In New Hampshire, polls show a majority of millennials support the no-baloney Sanders. A CNN/WMUR poll from early December showed that 74% of state voters aged 18-to-34 support Sanders.
That means Dunham appeared in New Hampshire to represent what Clinton lacks. While candidate is cautious, controlled and private, her young stand-in is goofy, self-deprecating, spontaneous and open about her insecurities. Dunham wields a brashly outspoken brand of feminism, and is self-aware of her own pull, with a pitch tailor-made for the same audience that watches her show.
“While Hillary Clinton’s anatomy is not the reason I’m voting for her,” Dunham told the Street restaurant audience on Friday, “there’s nothing that would send a stronger message to this country, and to the world at large than sending a competent, strong, essential woman to the highest office.”
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