WOMEN AND MINORITIES ARE NOT THE PROBLEM; THEY'RE THE '08 LEADERS. Not to pile on, since Thomas Edsall's weekend column has been so ably dissected by Ezra and Ben already, but I do think Edsall's piece also needsto be considered in light of the fact that the two leading Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination in 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are a woman and an African-American.
It seems increasingly bizarre to me that anyone could point to a sensitivity to the concerns of women and African-Americans as the problem with the party, when, in fact, the party is now being led by a diverse group of people whose candidacies have been made possible by the work of such interest groups over the past four and a half decades. Indeed, the real worry ought to be that the party has neglected to adequately study how to help its ever-growing number of female and minority candidates win in a political environment that House candidate Darcy Burner has pointed out may be uniquely unfavorable to them (wartime), and which may require them to pursue different sorts of electoral strategies than the ones that proved so successful for their white male Democratic peers this November.
