I’m pretty sure I’ve never earnestly accused anyone of “playing the X card,” but this is one case where that phrase, with all the negative connotations it carries, is entirely apt. Clinton is planning to play the gender card to distract from the rest of her crummy, status-quo hand. And Clinton’s folks seems to be banking on Republicans to help them with the sleight:

Indeed, the people in Mrs. Clinton’s orbit have come to believe that gender is far more an advantage to her this time around, in part from seeing the degree to which some Republicans have hurt themselves in recent elections on charged subjects like rape.

Her 2016 campaign, they suggested, is far more likely to seize on opportunities to stoke outrage if someone asks, as a woman in the crowd did at one videotaped John McCain event in 2007, “How do we beat the bitch?”