"Hey, even the cows like her didn't vote for her, so quit yer b*itchin'!"

These hapless columnists never bothered to note that (1) the numbers were always about the same for the question asked about gender, (2) "an important factor" does not equate to the sole deciding factor, or (3) for those states with significant percentages of African-American voters, a higher proportion of those AA voters answered in the affirmative, which kind of throws their whole storyline off.

The inability to account for subgroups in the polling data is going to lead more than a few of these same columnists to make faulty assumptions throughout the entire election season, and probably well beyond.  Remember how in the aftermath of the 2004 election so many of them pounced on the prevalence of the so-called "values voters" as proof that the only way for Democrats to compete against the GOP was for the party to make a hard swing to the right on social issues?  I don't recall any of the columnists coming back to say that they hadn't bothered to look a bit more closely at the data to determine what it might actually have meant.

Clinton's run has exposed a divide between what could be termed optimist and pessimist feminists. ... 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

The hell? This is a lot to be squeezing out of those numbers.

However it does go along with another annoying habit of Punditstand: when not slamming Sen Clinton directly, why not slap on some completely irrelevant, invented, unflattering quality?

Obama female voters: omtimistic! young!
Clinton female voters: pessimistic! old!

BTD has supported Obama from wayback cuz of his Media Darling status.  Obama, according to the bio I just read, has pretty much always been a Darling--his mama told him he was very special, and he, well, he has always had a very high opinion of himself, and has had pretty good reinforcement of this throughout his life.

The Clintons--Hillary--know what will, or could, happen if and when she were to step in the WH.  The Republican might be mean!  The press might be mean!  The American people, some of them, might be mean!  There might be--gasp--disunity!  Meanness!

I suppose Obama knows, in a hypothetical sense, that disunity could happen, and people might say mean things about him and his wife and even his daughters, and about his fine ideas and proposals.  But I don't think he's really prepared for it, and I don't think he'll be at all happy when it happens.  I think the man has lived in a bubble, quite frankly.  I know he is rather cool--"Hawaiian cool"--when stressed, but he's, well, elitest.  He doesn't like being picked on.  I don't think he'll like being in public life where a LOT of people are critical of him...

What I don't understand is what has seemed to me and other Hillary supporters to be the visceral need of angry black and white men (Obama supporters and the media) to utterly savage the Clintons, and call them and us racists.  I asked an Obama supporter how I could be a racist when I had voted for Jesse Jackson, twice, and was promptly informed that even mentioning Jesse's name in the same breath as Obama meant I was, indeed, a racist.  Ok then.  I honor Jesse and his historic runs for president.  The question that has never been answered for me is why the Obama supporters do not.  

I dont' remember any of the numbers right now (although South Dakota springs to mind) but I know there were at some states where Hillary got a high percent of the white female vote.

Sullivan's optimist/pessimist distinction is insulting and self-serving. I am trying real hard not to do the same thing, in general I try to avoid explaining others' motives.

My question is why would women who think of themselves as progressive and feminist look at two candidates, one a super qualified, experienced, massively informed proven feminist of long standing with the more progressive policies and an unbelievable track record, the other an unqualified, inexperienced, unvetted man with less progressive policies, no track record, questionable and corrupt associations, exhibiting sexist behavior and contradicting himself constantly, and then choose to support the man? Why in fact would many of these women engage in bashing the woman, often in sexist hate mongering ways?

I don't call that optimism. Sorry, here I go, I call it fear and internalized sexism. As I've said before, women are the most colonized people on earth.

All of which translated to the same thing. He won the AA vote overwhelmingly, and this meant he won every subgroup.

My elders, many women, constantly said, "they love the Clintons.  He should wait his turn.  He would be a good VP and will get experience."

I don't know how many times I heard that meme from many AA women.

What happened was the Clintons dog whistle tactics.  Now to whites it may not seam like that, but everyone hear things different.  The AA community heard it different.

I can not believe that the Clintons who were so beloved in this community and it was the AA vote that PUT CLINTON in the WH, they got out there heavily and voted for him.  Now, how they could go down the race baiting road, that many AAs feel that they did, is beyond me.

They LOST this vote on their own, and yes, Armando is right, Clinton only needed 30% of the AA woman vote to defeat Obama, but she and her campaign threw it away.  By SC, the AA community was DONE with the Clintons.

I keep feeling like I'm being told to "sit down and shut up".  But I know what I witnessed in this campaign, and no pundit can change that opinion.  

The dishonest, untrustworthy, wife of the equally dishonest and untrustworthy spouse, is favored by Democrats for the Vice Presidency by 54%. Women favor the ticket by 60% and 51% of men oppose it.
Maybe that's where sexism comes in.

Marie C. Wilson of the White House Project wrote in a CNN Commentary that it's time for more Hillary Clintons, saying she started a political movement.

A "Pew Research Center poll found that nearly 40 percent of Clinton's female supporters believe that her gender hurt her candidacy. This being 2008, that sexism often took a more subtle path than in the past, taking bites out of Clinton's authority and "likeability" in ways that were arguably more insidious than the overt epithets."

Wilson goes on to say, "Overt or understated, this primary season was undeniably disrespectful to a woman who instead deserved our utmost respect, just like any other candidate for our nation's highest office."

"Of course, gender played against Clinton, as it inevitably will as long as we stay in the business of throwing one woman at a time up to the top. Doing so necessitates that a woman prove she's "man enough" for the job, it demands an impossible level of "perfection," and it requires a balancing act between the tough and the feminine that even the Cirque du Soleil couldn't manage."

"A sole woman vying for the top position will always have to be twice as good to be just good enough. The truth is, women have been empowered in this country, but we are not in power."

"If Sens. Obama and McCain want the backing of Sen. Clinton's supporters, as they have both made clear they do, then each of them will have to find a way to show women real respect: by advocating policies that benefit women and families and by advancing women's leadership in their own campaigns and potential administrations."

"If Obama can continue to speak to Clinton supporters as he did Tuesday night, eventually, he will be heard. As for Sen. McCain, his support of tax cuts for the wealthy and his positions on reproductive choice and health care make him the less natural surrogate for Clinton."

"Still, expect to see his campaign continue to vie for the constituency. Women may yet struggle to garner respect as we lead, but nobody questions our power as a voting bloc."