TAP DEBATE! I was struck by Markos's comment that, "it is amazing, however, to witness a presidential race where being the white male candidate appears to be a disadvantage." True dat. Moreover, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, by and large, being evaluated on their own terms. Clinton is not "the woman" candidate, and Obama is not "the African-American" candidate. Clinton is the pragmatic frontrunner with establishment support and big bags bulging with money, while Obama is the electrifying newcomer. Indeed, I sort of think that this has proven a problem for supporters of Hillary, who are invested in the opposition to her being a function of her gender or name rather than her politics. I chafed against Garance's pro-Hillary article in the latest Prospect for precisely that reason (though Garance is not, as far as I know, an actual Hillary supporter) -- it seemed to want to make the conversation about her chromosomes rather than her conservatism. After all, I find it hard to believe that Democrats are abandoning a white woman for a black man on grounds of political expediency. The knock on Hillary in Democratic circles, at least at this point, is admirably substantive. She's a pragmatic centrist at a moment that calls for a visionary progressive. Garance, to her credit, acknowledges the ideological tension, but tries to resolve it in a very peculiar way. "This is where ignoring the elephant in the room -- Clinton's unique position as a female candidate -- really starts to matter for liberals," she writes. "Women are more anti-war than men. The very same population that most supports Clinton is the one that has most consistently and most ferociously favored withdrawing troops from Iraq and opposed intervening in Iran. And this same group has signaled its belief that the liberal values expressed by electing the first female president in our nation's history trump the value of having that person apologize for her vote." I find that a very...strange appeal. First, it's by no means clear that women are overwhelmingly supportive of Hillary. A recent Zogby poll showed her capturing 34% of women vs. 30% of men. That's a significantly smaller percentage than I would've expected. And in another poll, Zogby found that 42% of women say they'll "never" support Hillary. Only 30% say the same about either Obama or Edwards. So it's not clear to me that Hillary has the potential to vastly outrun the other Democrats among women. Indeed, there's evidence to suggest the exactly the opposite.
