The latest gallup polls are showing Clinton is losing women’s votes to Obama. In my neck of the woods Connecticut, I am seeing the same trends - campaigning in New Haven - Home to Yale - is showing exactly what the gallup polls say:
I posit that Clinton’s ‘inevitability’ vote is losing ground quickly yet is a normal occurance statistically. This trend is going to continue in my opinion…
This is going to be a horse race folks plain and simple, and I believe Barack is going to cinch it by a nose… Basically, I think Clinton has too much baggage to bring this full circle. Nothing against the woman personally, I just don’t think she’s going to make it.
So why the shift in women voters? Quinnapiac is polling the same results and I’ll touch back here tonight when I get back from a rally at Yale today…and post the general feel of the rally.
Because Obama is playing nice, and Clinton (both of them) hasn’t been. IMO, women won’t necessarily vote for a woman on gender alone, but they’re more likely to leap to her side if they think people (read: Men) are picking on her because of her sex.
NYNOW aside, Obama’s been nicer, and the media hasn’t been gleefully predicting Clinton’s doom as they did between Iowa and New Hampshire. They don’t feel like they have to protect her honor, and thus are free to get caught up in the same charismatic hurricane of hope as the boys are.
Plus, I doubt having her husband do her dirty work is helping any.
ISTM that Clinton sees all this too, and is changing her tune. The last debate was very civil. That will help her, but I think the damage is already done as far as Tuesday is concerned.
Anecdotally speaking, as a woman, I’m a bit annoyed that Hillary isn’t telling Bill to get his rude ass back in the kitchen or den or wherever he’s supposed to spend his time now that he’s retired. When potential First Ladies go campaigning, they’re expected to be nice and boost their spouses and be SUPPORT PERSONNEL. They are NOT supposed to go out and wage war as though they were campaigning for themselves. If she can’t tell him to STFU and make it stick, is she tough enough to handle the rest of the campaign? I’d feel the same way if a male candidate couldn’t ride herd on his campaign staff and wife in a similar manner.
I also don’t think that primaries are an appropriate place to get nasty. In a primary, everyone is supposed to be on the same side, nominally speaking. The guy you trash today could be your running mate tomorrow so it makes no sense to denigrate and tear down. Save that for the goddamned Republicans!
I thought everyone learned not to place so much stock in polls after New Hampshire. Given the most accurate poll was in Florida not too long ago and Hillary devastated Obama, completely unexpected given the trends the pundits/polls are suggesting all over the country.
I think the Clinton outlier in New Hampshire gets over-hyped. Obama & Edwards received what they were supposed to get and the Republicans didn’t see any wonky upsets either. According to Electoral-Vote.com the averages of the last 15 polls before NH and the real results went as follows:
Candidate Poll average Final
Hillary Clinton 29.8% 39.1%
Barack Obama 36.7% 36.4%
John Edwards 18.8% 16.9%
Obama was as accurate a result as you’ll ever see. Edwards was within any likely margin of error. Supposedly some 15% of the state was “undecided” a few days before the election and there’s a debate to be had about why they broke for Clinton (“Found her voice”, felt she was attacked, wanted to go against the Iowa-ordained Obama, just liked her message better) but people read too much into New Hampshire in so far as saying that polls are a joke and I don’t see any reason to assume that polls are typically off by 10% as a matter of course, especially when viewed as a combined average.
There are several reasons why I’m not supporting Clinton in the primary, but only one is potentially gender-specific. It seems as though she’s riding her husband’s coattails. If she hadn’t been married to Bill Clinton, I don’t think she’d be a serious contender.
As a woman, I’d much rather see a woman like Janet Napolitano or Susan Collins running. I’d like our first woman president to be someone who has succeeded through merit rather than marriage.
(I’ve heard that Clinton is a fine senator, but I think she’d do the country more good by continuing to serve in Congress than by running for president.)
Is there evidence that Oprah’s support had previously made a difference for Osama in the primaries?
I heard earlier today that the LA Times has not endorsed a candidate (in the primaries, I assume) since 1972. They are endorsing Obama. That’s impressive.
I’ve shifted my vote from Clinton to Obama over a period of time. I would hope that most feminists are not one-issue voters. Although I had looked forward to voting for a woman and had liked Hillary and the President previously, I have not been satisfied with Senator Clinton’s vote on war with Iraq or her statements about it later. Obama got my attention at the Democratic Convention in 2004.
I’ve had some very positive feelings about him ever since that time and I have been generally undecided between them until Bill Clinton’s remark about Jesse Jackson. That may be unfair to Hillary, but she’s the one who brung 'im. Was it a little thing? Maybe. But it was also a reminder of “business as usual.”
Besides, Obama inspires me and Hillary bores me. There will be other women. I think that a man like Obama is rare. And he does make me think of what it was like when young John Kennedy got his chance. He won’t be perfect, but neither was JFK. But he certainly lifted us up and that is exactly what we need.
Well, Mrs. Clinton still has Ann Coulter’s vote, apparently,
I don’t think there’s any solid evidence for this (sorry to wander into GD so unprepared…), but my assumption was that what Bill was doing was a strategy from her campaign, not merely Bill shooting off his mouth. HRC is many things to many people, but she doesn’t strike me as being that sloppy a strategist. I think she’s concerned about appearing brittle and mean, and it was a decision by her and her staff to have lovable ol’ Bill be the attack dog.
I’m going to dig around for some comparative poll numbers: Is there a chance that voters of all genders are slowly shifting away from Hillary because they see a race against McCain being much tighter than one against Huckabee or Romney?
Actually, I was going to suggest something like this seriously. Good grief, he’s running for heartthrob in chief!
That may not explain the shift, but add to that that HRC gets support for being a woman, while Obama appeals to women for the same reasons he appeals to men (with the heartthrob thing looming larger of course). As one comes to see HRC as being merely Billary back again (a view which a more visible Bubba can encourage) her femaleness becomes less a big deal.
Or, you know, they like his health care plan better? I dunno.
An article from the NYT Magazine suggests a reason: women’s votes are up for grabs because they have less knowledge on which to form an opinion, fewer substantive political beliefs or strong convictions, and thus can easily be persuaded to change their minds in short order:
Less knowledge implies they are making their choice based on more ephemeral factors, one of which could simply be: Hey, it’s what everyone else is doing, must be the way to go. What was the best way to be popular in high school? Popularity.
I know several women who have slowly changed their minds from Hillary to Obama in the upcoming primary on Tuesday - and most of them are doing so simply because they think Obama has a better chance of winning in November, not because they think anything less of Hillary.
As one friend in Huntington Beach told me yesterday, “I really like both of them, but I think Obama has the better chance of beating McCain.”
