I strongly fear suspect that most American women will vote for Hillary Clinton without ever examining the issues closely, just because she is their first opportunity, after 200+ years, of finally having one of their own in office. And it is way past time.
This occurs to me after a very brief conversation I had with my wife a few minutes ago. I said something to the effect of, "If Gore doesn't run, I'm leaning to Edwards as a better candidate than Clinton."
She said, "Um hum," rolled her eyes slightly, and returned to her computer screen with a smile on her face.
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I've been married long (and often) enough to recognize the "whatever you say, dear" undercurrent. A flash hit me. "How many women in America do you think are going to listen to their men yammer and then, once they are safely in the privacy of the voting booth, go ahead and vote for Hillary just because they can?" I asked her.
Much bigger smile.
It's all just a variant of the "favorite son" pattern. If someone who belongs to your ethnic/racial/gender group is running for the first time, and actually seems to have a good shot at winning, wouldn't you be inclined to vote for them even if they weren't the best candidate? Could you even see, as a proud member of your ethnic/racial/gender group, that he or she wasn't the best?
So here's a big fat clue for all the other candidates (including Gore): it's time to start saying out loud, "Just because she's a woman, it doesn't mean her policies and decisions will be better for women. Here's why ..." There are certainly lots of good arguments to be made here and the Hillary camp will fight back vigorously, which might push her towards the progressive side of the party, making this a win-win for all of us. Indeed, she's been staking out the "I'm the candidate for women and children" territory quite successfully, even as the traditional media ignores her.
The hard trick will be to do it without sounding sexist, especially since many, many women will feel that even a mediocre woman president will (a) be an important milestone and (b) an improvement over most male presidents.
Frankly, I suspect the only candidate who could gracefully pull this off would be Gore and then he'd probably have to do it gently so as to accept her as his running mate...