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The Gender Agenda

May 19th, 2008
By ROBERT STEIN

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“If many of Mrs. Clinton’s legions of female supporters believe she was undone even in part by gender discrimination,” the New York Times asks today, “how eagerly will they embrace Senator Barack Obama, the man who beat her?”

The question underscores how crucial it is for Democrats to untangle the issue of what derailed America’s first woman president from what seemed her clear path to the White House only a year ago. Was Hillary Clinton’s campaign undone by the message or the messengers?

In the latter category, Sen. Clinton, although she bears ultimate responsibility, was clearly hampered not only by her husband but hot-shot strategist Mark Penn, who failed to see that voters would be turned off by a play-it-safe campaign fueled by what looked like a sense of entitlement. (They overlooked the lesson of what Harry Truman did to Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, a “sure” year for Republicans.)

“When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to her,” presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin points out. Her candidacy faltered as a result of “strategic, tactical things that have nothing to do with her being a woman.”

No matter how true that may be, and even if they accept its validity, that will bring cold comfort to millions of women who have so much hope invested in what Hillary Clinton calls breaking “the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in American life.

All other calculations aside, and there are many, this frustration has to be taken into account in Barack Obama’s choice of a running mate. With consideration and without condescension, the potential first African-American President has to think long and hard about the symbolic and practical value of breaking through American prejudice with two for the price of one.

Cross-posted from my blog.



This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Democratic Party, Women's Issues, Feminism, Women, Newsweek Blogitics, Progressives, Bill Clinton, Elections, Gender, 2008 Elections, Race, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    Gender bias, now that is interesting to discuss . after I am a woman, so why am I happy that a woman competes, yet why my voice didNOT support that very first woman and I am not alone in that plight; infact it seems at least one third of educated white *brrr, Women feel like myself and our voices are missing to "our" sister.
    Firstly, I am personnally unhappy to vote for a woman on the sake she is a woman or for a man because he is a man , I select who is I think is the fittest for the job, in fact coming from a family of highly minded females and likelwise rather thunderous men, I have been taught to be independant , that is independant, the right to vote is not sex driven to my humble knowledge. That is one answer, another one is the fact thatmany are so relieaved not to be facing an "inevitable" choice, poor Hillary started running as the only one option on the menu, that did not help her, independant people do not like 1 item list choice. So some were are mischievious to wish to deny the goden prize to the supposedly juggernaut chosen one, then she was Hillary, hillary who? CLINTON, YOU KNOW his WIFE.
    tHTA IS WHAT GOT US STARTED TOO.
    For quite a few women, nowdays, we have earned legit our own successes not relying on being mrs so and so wife. We are professionals by our very own standings, and select as a role modele a woman who has been shamed by the vile behaviour of her man is no role modele at all. She got the help of the DEms TO GET ELECTED IN 2000, because of what, he had betrayed her; now that sleazy
    Hillary got cheated twice, when he had that intern fling, and when he pretended to her she wou.ld have it easy when it is not easy for anyone. Angela mERKEL, tHATCHER, FRENCH ALLIOT MARIE DID NOT GET THERE BECAUSE THERE WERE PRETTY ,
    THEY HAD TO FIGHT THEIR OWN BATTLES, hILLARY LOST SOME OF HER SISTERS VOICES WHEN WE REALIZED SHE WANTED TO HAVE A FEMININE CAKE AND EAT IT TOO LIKE THE BOYS. that was coming it too strong for women who fought their battles on their own 2 feet, without Bill behind to cry on his shoulders.
 
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