I saw an interview with a 30-something woman who was just leaving the polling place after voting in the Wisconsin primary. If her sentiments are typical of the majority of women, then their support for Hillary is pretty soft. When asked who she voted for, she smiled kind of sheepishly and said, "Well...I really struggled with this! I wanted to vote for my favorite candidate; but in the end I decided to vote for the candidate that I thought had the best chance of beating the Republicans in November...so I voted for Obama." sorry, Hill.
So maybe Obama communicates across the gender gap to women better than Hillary does to men? Anyway, Clinton and McCain better stop whining about that golden tongue and deal with it because Obama, given enough time in front of the public jury, will incinerate both of them. And what about the racial divide? What's going on there with Obama and whites everywhere we've had primaries? One of my friends argues Obama is on a whole new level with the dynamic he projects to whites going something like this - Look, I trust you and I like you and I need you and we got to get beyond this racial sht once and for all and start getting stuff done... . This is no Sharpton or Rangel or any of those tired old hack black pols that whites never listened to anyway.
Yes...I think there is something more going on here than simply an anti-Hillary vote from whites. The "race question" has proven to be a totally non-issue so far, even in the deep south...which is in itself cause for amazement and hope. Beyond that, I think Obama's appeal is a curious mixture of JFK, MLK, and traditional American values of hard work and self-reliance. People in this country are feeling lost, and here is a man who seems to have intelligence and vision. That makes for a compelling package in troubles times. But if the race issue is taking a turn for the better, what about the gender issue? If Obama is elected president, it will only further pave the way for a woman president sometime in the near future. Of course most women are anxious to see that; but even they (I think) recognize that the FIRST woman president is going to be very special in American history, and the more thoughtful of them have to ask themselves, "Is Hillary really the right woman to cross that threshold?"