According to Thomas B. Edsall, guest OpEd columnist in the New York Times:
1. She is a woman.
2. Democrats tend to pulverize their leading candidates in primaries.
3. She is a woman.
Edsall doesn’t put it in those words exactly, but that’s the gist. And he offers some compelling evidence from the recent midterm elections:
Evaluations of men and women running for House seats in 2006 have turned up disturbing numbers. In the 42 top-tier “Red-to-Blue” races selected by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for intensive financing and support, 25 of the candidates were male and 17 were female. In those contests, male candidates batted .800: 20 victories to five defeats. The women faced higher barriers: three won and 14 lost, batting .176.
This pattern was even more striking in the initial group of “Red-to-Blue” candidates targeted as most promising by the campaign committee. Of the 11 men, nine, or 82 percent, won. Of the 11 women, 10, or 90.1 percent, lost.
Why do women seem to be floundering? Democratic officials, according to Edsall, have a “working hypothesis,” which is that “female candidates were more vulnerable on the issue of immigration, viewed as more generous with federal aid and amnesty.” Also, it’s suggested that women aren’t tough enough to handle terrorism. Women, in other words, are seen as being too nice.
Which all suggests that Hillary Clinton’s public persona — a lot of strength and only a little warmth — is calculated to negate an electoral bias against niceness. And it seems to be working. “Her campaign,” Edsall writes, “released a memo with recent data showing that 68 percent of voters describe Hillary as ‘a strong leader,’ and that 92 percent say they would vote for a woman for president – up from 52 percent in a similar poll in 1955.”
But do these kind of poll results hold up? Do people confess to pollsters how they truly feel about voting for a woman, or other minority candidates? In Freakonomics we offered evidence suggesting that black candidates do better in pre-election polling than in actual voting; and that a white racist like David Duke does better in the actual election than in polls. (Duke, BTW, was a featured performer in the Iranian Holocaust-denying conference, which I blogged about earlier.)
So here’s an open question: Is Hillary Clinton electable? And if not, is it because she’s a woman? And if that’s not the reason, what is?
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I recently read _Condi vs. Hillary : The Next Great Presidential Race_ by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann. It was interesting and informative, though it was clear that Dick Morris doesn’t like Hillary.
I’m a fairly liberal fellow, and really liked Bill Clinton. I’m so-so about Hillary, but it’s basically a sure thing that I’d vote for the Democratic candidate regardless.
However, I came away from that book with even more respect for Condi, so I’m disappointed that it looks like she won’t run. It sounds twisted, but I respect smart people that disagree with me.
I was also very taken with Powell, and was also disappointed that he decided not to run years back. I truly felt that the entire country could have gotten behind him and we’d have a President liked by nearly everyone.
But that’s beside the point. While she is clearly the front-runner at this point for the Democratic nomination, there seems to be such a divider of opinion about her, that I don’t think that she can win. There seems to be too much negative opinion about her out there, even among the Democrats.
I do NOT think that she’s unelectable because she’s a woman. However, I’m willing to admit that many people have a problem with her because she’s a strong woman and they just don’t like that in their world. And it’s that anti-Hillary opinion that I think makes her unelectable.
I was actually hoping that 6 years ago that Bush would end up picking LIZ Dole as his running mate. She’s not all that different from Hillary Clinton, but yet, she has a very different public opinion. (And her husband seems like a nice guy, too.) That action by Bush would have then forced Gore to also pick a female running mate, which was up in the air, but Pat Shroeder [sic?] would have been a good fit. And regardless of the outcome, the country would be better for it in many ways.
That said, I think that McCain will probably get the Republican nomination. And while I wouldn’t vote for him, I won’t mind if he wins. (I very much minded that Bush won.) McCain seems to be a “good guy”.
Of course, the wild card at this time is Obama. If Hillary and Obama were to hitch up together early, I think that they’d be a cinch for the nomination and probably for the election as well. However, I still think that they’d be fairly polarizing, and wouldn’t be able to “unite” the country the same way that someone like McCain could.
I recently read _Condi vs. Hillary : The Next Great Presidential Race_ by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann. It was interesting and informative, though it was clear that Dick Morris doesn’t like Hillary.
I’m a fairly liberal fellow, and really liked Bill Clinton. I’m so-so about Hillary, but it’s basically a sure thing that I’d vote for the Democratic candidate regardless.
However, I came away from that book with even more respect for Condi, so I’m disappointed that it looks like she won’t run. It sounds twisted, but I respect smart people that disagree with me.
I was also very taken with Powell, and was also disappointed that he decided not to run years back. I truly felt that the entire country could have gotten behind him and we’d have a President liked by nearly everyone.
But that’s beside the point. While she is clearly the front-runner at this point for the Democratic nomination, there seems to be such a divider of opinion about her, that I don’t think that she can win. There seems to be too much negative opinion about her out there, even among the Democrats.
I do NOT think that she’s unelectable because she’s a woman. However, I’m willing to admit that many people have a problem with her because she’s a strong woman and they just don’t like that in their world. And it’s that anti-Hillary opinion that I think makes her unelectable.
I was actually hoping that 6 years ago that Bush would end up picking LIZ Dole as his running mate. She’s not all that different from Hillary Clinton, but yet, she has a very different public opinion. (And her husband seems like a nice guy, too.) That action by Bush would have then forced Gore to also pick a female running mate, which was up in the air, but Pat Shroeder [sic?] would have been a good fit. And regardless of the outcome, the country would be better for it in many ways.
That said, I think that McCain will probably get the Republican nomination. And while I wouldn’t vote for him, I won’t mind if he wins. (I very much minded that Bush won.) McCain seems to be a “good guy”.
Of course, the wild card at this time is Obama. If Hillary and Obama were to hitch up together early, I think that they’d be a cinch for the nomination and probably for the election as well. However, I still think that they’d be fairly polarizing, and wouldn’t be able to “unite” the country the same way that someone like McCain could.
If (when) Hillary does get the nomination, she will be the obvious frontrunner for 2008. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with Obama. I don’t see him playing much second fiddle to Hillary as a VP possibility. As a moderate, I cannot stand Hillary but find Obama a very viable possibility. If Obama challenges Hillary, I think he comes out on top.
It’s not because she is a woman that she won’t win. It’s because she is not the type of woman most women would like to see in the White House (again).
If (when) Hillary does get the nomination, she will be the obvious frontrunner for 2008. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with Obama. I don’t see him playing much second fiddle to Hillary as a VP possibility. As a moderate, I cannot stand Hillary but find Obama a very viable possibility. If Obama challenges Hillary, I think he comes out on top.
It’s not because she is a woman that she won’t win. It’s because she is not the type of woman most women would like to see in the White House (again).
After watching two leadership battles here in Canada (federal Liberals and the Alberta Conservatives) I wonder if she’ll suffer from being the long time front runner.
In both the races here there were candidates who began to work long before, built a solid base and went into the voting as front runners. Both those candidates ran into solid blocks of ‘anybody but them’ voters. Both candidates lost.
Hillary appears to have a strong base. She is a Senator, so we know that at that level she is electable. But to make it through the primaries she will have to pick up votes from the candidates who fall out of the race. If those votes gather to ‘anybody but Hillary’ then she won’t make it through the primaries despite all her work.
The wildcard is Obama. If he chooses to run with Hillary then she could overcome the ABH factor. If he runs against her he may benefit from it.
(The losing candidates in Canada, both of whom were considered highly likely to win, were Jim Dinning, in Alberta, and Michael Ignatieff, federal Liberals.)
After watching two leadership battles here in Canada (federal Liberals and the Alberta Conservatives) I wonder if she’ll suffer from being the long time front runner.
In both the races here there were candidates who began to work long before, built a solid base and went into the voting as front runners. Both those candidates ran into solid blocks of ‘anybody but them’ voters. Both candidates lost.
Hillary appears to have a strong base. She is a Senator, so we know that at that level she is electable. But to make it through the primaries she will have to pick up votes from the candidates who fall out of the race. If those votes gather to ‘anybody but Hillary’ then she won’t make it through the primaries despite all her work.
The wildcard is Obama. If he chooses to run with Hillary then she could overcome the ABH factor. If he runs against her he may benefit from it.
(The losing candidates in Canada, both of whom were considered highly likely to win, were Jim Dinning, in Alberta, and Michael Ignatieff, federal Liberals.)
If Hillary doesn’t win, it’ll be due to the high negatives associated with her as an already-known quantity. See this pollster.com post.
Obama’s popularity is reaching rock start status early. He just had 1500 people show up for a NH appearance this weekend. Other non-Hillary water-testers can’t sell out broom closets.Obama-mania is going to get national buzz over the next few weeks. IMO, Obama has the right brand for the times. The most common criticism in response is going to be that he’s inexperienced and untested, but in the current environment, I think people are unlikely to be dissuaded by that. Instead, they are going to largely trust their own measure of the guy and find him to seem sincere and on the right track despite the fact that there isn’t currently much if any substance behind the “hope salesman” angle. People need and want hope right now, and it can only credibly be sold right now by someone young, charismatic, and untested. Old guys and insiders can’t sell that sort of stuff.
If Hillary doesn’t win, it’ll be due to the high negatives associated with her as an already-known quantity. See this pollster.com post.
Obama’s popularity is reaching rock start status early. He just had 1500 people show up for a NH appearance this weekend. Other non-Hillary water-testers can’t sell out broom closets.Obama-mania is going to get national buzz over the next few weeks. IMO, Obama has the right brand for the times. The most common criticism in response is going to be that he’s inexperienced and untested, but in the current environment, I think people are unlikely to be dissuaded by that. Instead, they are going to largely trust their own measure of the guy and find him to seem sincere and on the right track despite the fact that there isn’t currently much if any substance behind the “hope salesman” angle. People need and want hope right now, and it can only credibly be sold right now by someone young, charismatic, and untested. Old guys and insiders can’t sell that sort of stuff.