Obama and Clinton take their campaigns to women, but it could be that the candidate with the most appeal to female voters isn't in the picture.
Which presidential candidate is best for women?
Evidently, American women’s opinions of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have slipped more in the past few months than their opinions of Republican John McCain have changed, according to a survey released on Thursday.
Twenty-six percent of women said they liked the Clinton, a New York senator, less now than when the primary process began in January, according to the poll by Lifetime Networks as part of its Every Woman Counts campaign to encourage women to vote and run for office.
Those whose opinion declined cited Clinton’s personal traits, saying they found her dishonest, while the 15 percent who liked her more cited her traits as a tough fighter. Another 55 percent said their opinion had not changed.
So, does the women's vote still matter? Is it a monolithic bloc? Or do individual political beliefs trump gender solidarity? And which of the candidates would be the best president for women's issues? Should concern about women's issues come before considerations of foreign policy, war, education and health care? Or are they virtually the same?
Thoughts
Hillary Clinton
Submitted on April 16th, 2008 by AnonymousI had considered Hillary Clinton as my choice until she became so desperate for votes that she started bad mouthing the other Democratic candidate. She needs to bow out gracefully (if possible for her) before we end up with McCain, the other Bush!
When desperation steps in so does name calling and criticizing. She lost my vote and I will now vote for Obama.
The best candidate for women!
Submitted on April 11th, 2008 by pet713Hillary of course, because she is a women! Only she knows how women have had to fight tooth & nail for every position they hold in life. Not counting all the other issues that women & working women have been fighting for - for centuries. The right to vote and be counted. The right to have daycare facilities provided at employment. The right to choose if we want or not to have a baby. It's our bodies and no one other than ourselves has the right to tell us what to do with it. The right of equal pay for equal work. The right to be hired in the same high collar jobs as men have been monopolizing for centuries. The right to choose if we go to war or not. Who knows more about this than a mother who has to send her son or daughter that she pained over giving birth too? Men have been running this country for centuries and they are running this country into the ground with all these corporate greed scandals and exactly the same stuff our present president and his hard nosing VP, Cheney, has been doing to this country for eight years. I did not vote for them, by the way! It is now time to elect a woman and see just how good a woman can be at running our country's affairs, both here and abroad. Women have been in power all over the world, except, here. This is suppose to be a very equalizing country. So let's start being equal and elect a woman to be our next president.
How Deeply Offensive
Submitted on April 11th, 2008 by Chuck_JohnsonThe very notion that there could ever be such a thing as the woman's candidate is silly at best and offensive at worst.
Name a single issue that is a "women only" issue. It can't be done.
Sure some might argue abortion and the ease at which we would allow killing of the fetus, but even that is problematic.
Chuck Johnson is a student at Claremont McKenna College. Feel free to contact him.