Democrats are Misogynists? Who Knew?

[Pangloss]

Well that won't be much of a conversation starter, since I don't think there really are any Hillary supporters left here. But there was a pretty good column in the Wall Street Journal today by Donald Boudreax, an economics professor at George Mason, who analyzes whether Hillary has been descriminated against in this race due to her gender.

 

So a woman who holds degrees from Wellesley and Yale – who has earned millions in the private sector, won two terms in the U.S. Senate, and gathered many more votes than John Edwards, Bill Richardson and several other middle-aged white guys in their respective bids for the 2008 Democratic nomination – feels cheated because she's a woman.

 

Seems doubtful. But hey, I'm a guy and perhaps hopelessly insensitive. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that her campaign has indeed suffered because of sexism.

 

The crux of the article is where he amusingly points out that if Hillary is correct that Democrats are misogynists, and if she's also correct in her statements that she's more able to beat McCain in the fall, then logically that suggests that Republicans are less sexist than Democrats. (grin)

 

Anyway, I thought you guys might get a kick out of it, so here's a link to the article.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121158263717018571.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

[iNow]

I personally think Hillary's current situation has zero to do with her gender, and everything to do with a mismanaged campaign, but that's just me. Yesterday on the Sunday morning shows this issue was covered quite well around the round tables.

[ParanoiA]

I personally think Hillary's current situation has zero to do with her gender, and everything to do with a mismanaged campaign, but that's just me. Yesterday on the Sunday morning shows this issue was covered quite well around the round tables.

 

I completely agree. We're ready for a woman president, and the dems are too, just not that woman. Obama spoiled her party.

[iNow]

Obama defintely tapped into some underlying feeling/sentiment/gestalt in the nation which was very powerful this season, and I think many possible candidates would have seriously struggled to compete with that, even with a campaign which was run very well (which Clinton's was not).

 

I see these comments from the Clinton campaign as a poor attempt to sow into the history books their preferred "reason" for her loss, despite its lack of accuracy.

[Pangloss]

Well put.

[bascule]

That said, looking at the exit poll numbers from Kentucky (where 41% of Clinton's supporters said they'd vote McCain over Obama, and 26% said they just wouldn't vote) I don't think it's a stretch to say that a large number of her supporters there were racists (did I mention that 20% admitted on the exit poll that race was an issue?)

 

I'd love to see a woman president. I thought it was refreshing to see there'd be someone who isn't a white male as a mainstream presidential candidate, regardless of how the primaries turned out. That said, this woman isn't fit to be president, and as she vainly tries to claw her way out of the hole she's dug for herself I think she's really made her true nature known. What a harpy...

[ParanoiA]

I'd love to see a woman president. I thought it was refreshing to see there'd be someone who isn't a white male as a mainstream presidential candidate, regardless of how the primaries turned out. That said, this woman isn't fit to be president, and as she vainly tries to claw her way out of the hole she's dug for herself I think she's really made her true nature known. What a harpy...

 

No kidding. I wanted a woman president so bad, I went out of my way to try to like her - not that I was going to vote for her. I still like her better than Obama. I'm certainly not frightened of her like I was a year or so ago.

 

I would have thought we'd have a woman president before a black president. Not sure why, I just thought a white woman pres would seem the logical step to a black man pres.

 

Now what I'd like to see is a black woman president. I wonder how many black women are libertarian-ish types...

[CDarwin]

I personally think Hillary's current situation has zero to do with her gender, and everything to do with a mismanaged campaign, but that's just me. Yesterday on the Sunday morning shows this issue was covered quite well around the round tables.

 

There are some who say they voted for Hillary as a reaction against some of the sexist jokes about her. So maybe her sex and sexism helped her. But that's just anecdotal.

[john5746]

That said, looking at the exit poll numbers from Kentucky (where 41% of Clinton's supporters said they'd vote McCain over Obama, and 26% said they just wouldn't vote) I don't think it's a stretch to say that a large number of her supporters there were racists (did I mention that 20% admitted on the exit poll that race was an issue?)

 

 

Did you mention that 25% of black voters in North Carolina admitted that race was an issue?

[iNow]

Does anyone here know what the question even means?

 

Person A: "Is race an issue?"

Person B: "I don't know. Can you please clarify what you are asking?"

Person A: "No. These polls work better the more ambiguous we make the questions."

 

[Pangloss]

I've suspected for a while now that poll respondants indicating that race was an issue are actually talking about their perception of other voters, not themselves, especially if the question is phrased ambiguously like above.

 

But you know what, if they'd asked me that question I would have said I think it's an issue. For, you know, other people. But yes, I do think the polling data suggests that race is still an issue for a significant number of voters. A higher number than we were expecting.

[bascule]

I've suspected for a while now that poll respondants indicating that race was an issue are actually talking about their perception of other voters, not themselves, especially if the question is phrased ambiguously like above.

 

I don't think so:

 

http://www.abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=4896202&page=1

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24736399/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_exit_poll

 

While unfortunately I'm unable to locate the specific question being asked, all the news stories make it clear that the question involved whether race was an issue in their vote, not the votes of others.

 

The question would be pretty pointless on an exit poll otherwise.

[Pangloss]

I'm not convinced that they always make that clear to the respondants. If you ask someone "do you think race is an issue", they may very well interpret that question to mean "do you think race is an issue for other people".

 

In this poll, for example, voters were asked "In the last ten years, have the values held by black people and the valued held by poor black people become more similar or more different?"

 

That's not a presidential poll, and not all poll questions are so ambiguous in that area, I realize. I'd have to see the actual questions used in a poll to know whether this is the case or not. Let's stay on this and see if we can come up with something, especially as we go into the general election. The issue is certainly not going to go away -- in fact I expect it to become even more prominent once Hillary is done.

 

By the way, here's an interesting article at Politico talking about the difficulties of cross-race polling:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10397.html