Hillary is missing a trick by guest editing Teen Vogue

I’ve never felt so sick as when it began to be clear that Hillary Clinton couldn’t win the presidential election. Despite being highly capable, hard-working, experienced and shrewd, Hills didn’t win because her PR battle failed; there were just too many voters who didn’t believe in her as leader material.

The problem, in part at least, was her failure to cross the gender divide and appeal to male voters (and Republican women), so how depressing it is to see where she’s now ended up. She must have given up on reaching the world at large, for – it was announced last week – Hillary is to guest edit one of the final issues of Teen Vogue (which is closing soon).

Here she will have the chance to preach to the converted, with girlpower editorial that will include pieces about her childhood best friend and her daughter, Chelsea. Her book, What Happened, will be added to the Teen Vogue book club readership. Sigh.

I agree that teenage girls are an important demographic, but the ones that are reading Teen Vogue guest edited by Hillary Clinton are not – I repeat, not – the people that need convincing.

Is this really the best that Hillary can do? I think not. The fuss and noise around the first edition of British Vogue last week, edited by Edward Enninful, its first male and first black editor, shows that the magazine is trying to head in a “progressive” direction. Enninful wants more diversity, and the first edition has a mixed-race model on the front. But for a woman who should have been President of America, this is still just paddling-pool politics.

If she really wants to go down the magazine route, Hillary should be guest editing Wired,

GQ, Esquire or The Economist. Her problem wasn’t lack of girl-powerenabled support, it was lack of support from pretty much everyone else.