Voting for Clinton Because She's a Woman

I just missed the Great Candidate Wars of '03-'04.  I do not know what kind of talking points people used against Edwards, or Kerry, or Dean, or Gephardt for that matter.  However, if they were anything like this year's wars, I have an idea.

If candidate supporters are to be believed, none of our nominees are experienced enough, or smart enough, or genuine enough, or pure enough.  They are all sleaze buckets who cannot win in the general election.  They all flipped on the war, or voted for bad trade agreements, or talk about Social Security like the Repubs, or have seen UFO's, or talk to fucking much (Biden, I'm looking at you).  Then there's Gravel and Richardson.

All of these are fair points one can use to decide who one will vote for, or conversely, not vote for.  We have levied accusations such as these (well, maybe not the UFO thing) against candidates, both better and worse, for a long time.

Still, there is one talking point among the diaries that I have thought about a lot.  People levy it at Clinton supporters, particularly female Clinton supporters.  "If you vote for HIllary because she's a woman, you're not a feminist."  I have to say, that's a load of bunk.

I vote for Democrats on sight.  When I get to the ballot box, if there is not a Democratic name on the ticket, I write in my best friends name.  I vote for Dem's whether I know who they are or not, because I can reasonably assume that the Democrat running for any given office will have values closer to my own then any Republican, and therefore will represent me better.  I want representation that will represent an issue I care about.

And who would be better to represent values that appeal to women better than a woman?  In this election, I can't think of any.  Hillary Clinton has always been a champion of the women's movement.  It is not unreasonable to expect a woman to vote for a woman, who would most likely represent her interests.  There are caveats to this voting pattern.  If a Democratic woman voted for Jean Schmidt or Elizabeth Dole simply because they were women, that would be counter-productive, because we can assume those women to hold positions that many in the feminist movement disagree with.

We can say the same thing for Barak Obama and the African-American vote as well.  Voting for descriptive representation usually, but not always, dovetails into substantive representation.

Now, one can argue whether or not women's issues are the most important ones facing this nation right now, or whether those issues and your pet issues are common.  Both would be valid concerns.  However, to disparage certain Hillary Clinton supporters because they intend to vote for her because of her sex is ludicrous.  Those people obviously believe that a women in their own party is best suited to address the issues that matter to them.  Ultimately, who is best suited to cater to one's issues is the only criteria that matters.

To head off any accusations in the comments, I am an undecided primary voter.  I used to be for Edwards, but after all the candidate hoopla on this site, I realized that all of our candidates are equally flawed, and all of them less so than the GOP field.  I really don't care who wins the nomination.