Amy Sullivan at Time has a piece up that turns Democratic primary conventional wisdom on its head...
Why Didn't More Women Vote for Hillary?
One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes.
So what does that mean? Clinton and her supporters have charged that sexism is responsible for her loss of the nomination. But it seems more likely that women themselves cost her the nod.
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To Sullivan's point, if Clinton had managed to hit the 60% mark among women, she would have swamped Obama.
So what happened?
Sullivan has a theory...
Clinton's run has exposed a divide between what could be termed optimist and pessimist feminists. It's a split between those who see Clinton's candidacy as groundbreaking--as the first of many serious runs by strong women--and those who count backward to Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and conclude that this kind of opportunity comes along only once in a generation. For this latter group, Clinton's candidacy took on a pressing urgency: If not now, when? If not her, who?
And she explains the differences between these two groups...
What unites the pessimists--many of whom are older women or women who don't work outside the home--is the persistent belief that women continue to face sexism and barriers in the workplace. Some may have an outmoded sense of the obstacles women face on the job, while others may well have left a workplace that made it hard for them to maintain a work-life balance. In both cases, they're more likely to place value in the symbolic power of electing a woman President.
Optimist feminists, on the other hand, don't question that a woman can become President or that it will occur in their lifetime. When these women look around, they see themselves making up half of business- and medical-school classes. They are law partners, CEOs and university presidents. And they don't want to rally behind a female candidate simply because she is a woman.
I am not sure whether Sullivan's thesis is valid, but she certainly upends what has been the conventional thinking about the race in this post-mortem period.
After all, Obama can't win women, right?
For example, Ben Smith has this item up on his blog today:
Appealing to women
One of the central stories of the next two weeks will be Barack Obama's appeal to women. As Toby Harnden writes in the Telegraph, he's begun to bring more women in senior roles into what had been, in the senior staff levels, a very male campaign operation.
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In any case, it'll be a key front in the coming months.
So a "key front" will be how Obama will do among women? Versus John McCain?
Right. Because McCain is so strong on women's issues.
After watching McCain's speech Tuesday night, I have to wonder just how many Clinton supporters who are currently claiming they'll vote for McCain will really be able to do it. It would be a gut-wrenching moment in the voting booth.
I have read a number of blog posts from Clinton backers claiming that Obama needs Clinton more than Clinton needs Obama because, somehow, Clinton controls the 18 million people who voted for her.
She doesn't, of course. There will be a small subset of Sullivan's "pessimist feminists" who may hold onto their anger all the way to November. But even Ellen Malcolm of Emily's List, as she works through her anger and disappointment, will direct her organization's efforts to help defeat McCain and elect Obama.
As for Hillary Clinton, I am certain she will work hard to elect Obama. She has still has many great things to accomplish in her political career. And she'll do that from her prominent place within the Democratic Party.