Will McCain get Hillary's voters?

Jennifer Rubin:

There is a lot of bitterness out there. And it’s not coming from rural voters in Appalachia. There are legions of Hillary Clinton supporters—from Emily List activists to NARAL members to middle-aged female fans—who do not like the impending outcome of the Democratic primary.

They are downright angry about some of the language employed by the media to describe Clinton, and at what they see as the media’s undue haste in shoving her out of the race. And they don’t like some of the phrases tossed around by Barack Obama (“Sweetie”; “You’re likable enough, Hillary”) either.

The major newspapers now regale us with stories about the many women, especially but not limited to the Geraldine Ferraro generation, who threaten to withhold their votes from Obama. Such angry and disillusioned female Democrats seem, for the moment, to be everywhere.

But even if we accept that this phenomenon is real (even if encouraged by Clinton herself), the question going forward is this: Will these voters will really turn tail on the Democratic nominee and vote for John McCain?

Recent history suggests that the idea of a mass female defection to the Republican side is more than a little unlikely: In 2000 Al Gore carried women voters 54-43 percent, and John Kerry carried them 51-48.

...

I think you need to look at women in different groups to determine which ones he will get. for example, I don't think he will get many black female voters, since Hillary did not either. If you look at a breakdown of bush's numbers, he won a majority of married female votes. Many of the women who voted against him were single, who were single issue pro abortion voters. So far, that has not been a big issue in this race and many of them may stay home rather than vote for a guy who they see as dissing their girl. Many of these voters have already suggested they will vote for McCain over Obama.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains