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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (61088)	4/23/2008 2:38:54 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542139

FYI- all the women I know in my area are supporting Obama, as I am.

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (61088)	4/23/2008 5:08:55 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542139

Apparently Hillary is drawing more women and more strident women to her. I think two things are going on here. One is evolutionary. A lot of women somewhat dismissed her candidacy on the basis of her getting here because of Bill. I was in that group myself and saw her as Bill-lite. I paid attention to her, though, out of curiosity and becuase I wanted her to represent women well (just as I want Obama to represent AAs well....this is the moment for both groups) But all of a sudden I was really struck one day by how smart she actually is....in an interview, answering hard questions. With that I began to see her separately from Bill, a person in her own right, prepared enough to make a legitimate run for the office as anybody else, and handling things pretty darn well. So I almost gave her a begrudging respect, you might say. Now it's easier for me because I'm not saddled with all the garbage that is spread about the Clintons, and I've watched her as a political figure of some kind since she was 27 or so. I'm used to her personality type and know that actually she's quite relaxed and funny behind the scenes...wittier than Bill, who acually has always kind of been an oaf to me. The other thing that has occurred for me simultaneously was watching her demeaned and ridiculed by people I had previously respected.....Jonathan Alter, for example. It's given me a bit of a slow burn and I detect the same thing going on with other women. I hear people all around me talking about MSNBC and the way she's been treated in the press. But this is Arkansas which does on balance like the Clintons so I take this with a grain of salt....but women I know have been more than a little angered by some of it. I truly resist thinking along the lines of 'men are sexist', afraid of strong women, or any of that. But there's an element in this campaign that's ugly and troubles me. It has to do with the level and the type of vitriol directed at her. I've seen men being critical of her with a kind of glee, like this is good sport or something....I just can't put my finger on it or how to define it, but I see it. And so do a lot of women.....this awareness is growing with women. I can see it and it could be reaching a critically polarizing level. As for divisions, though, some clear ones showed up in PA, Steve. She widened her lead with white men, too, not just women. Since more women vote than men, it could be that the race is falling into racial divisions and not male/female. She also widened her lead with Catholics. Bob Casey utterly failed to help Obama with this large group of voters. My guess here is the problem is with Jeremiah Wright. I think his negative impact is being underestimated. But we'll see. She also leads Obama with white college educated voters, so your observation earlier is a little off the mark regarding the education levels of her voters. Obama's strength in PA came from AAs of all kinds, voters making less than 15,000 and more than 100,000, and voters under the age of 30. The press reported he got 60% of the newly registered Democrats and Hillary got the other 40%.