Republican Dilemma

Ain't nuthin' new about that possible lineup. I don't think it'll actually going to happen, but it's been seriously talked about for some time now. The thing is, if the Dems nominate Hillary, Condi would be the logical choice to oppose her. Otherwise the GOP will lose the entire women's vote bloc. And the Rice woman would actually be a smart pick because of the race angle. How many people are going to remember that she has been largely just Dubya's mouthpiece?

I post on a local site.... very conservative...to the right of Pat Robertson... man you can't believe the flack I got for making this post......mysogynist...racist..... yee haw!!!! Good times....as though any of these local rednecks could choose between Hillary and a black woman without having a stroke from the stress......

heh-heh-heh.

That is a great friggin' idea. Where might I find such a site? I would go there strictily for my personal edification, of course, and would never consider stirring the pot.

I sort of stumbled on it accidentally.... it is a site where people from a Raleigh bedroom community which up until recently was just farms and stills live.... posting there is a hoot... a cross between swap shop and Rush Limbaugh worship..... there are about 4 "stinking Saddams Poodle, America hating, terrosit loving, godless liberals" including myself there.... it's pretty hilarious.... think some of our gun loving conservatives but not as urbane or witty....there are actually some very nice people there... but a large crop of rightwing nuts to play with.

I will be searching for such a site, Bear, and when I find one you be be the first one on my invitation list to participate in the frivolity.

If this club ain't exclusive, count me in, too, Gus. Please.

If that fool wouldn't have written a book by that title; I don't think there would be any discussion about it at all.

I neither believe that the GOP would lose the entire women's vote bloc, nor that there's too many Republican's that would be easier for Hillary to defeat. Everyone will remember she's largely just Dubya's mouthpiece.
Biden Vs. Giuliani is more likely.

I like Joe Biden.

gotcha

I think Bill has the ticket, unless some dark horse emerges.

No Republican woman would vote for Hillary Clinton.

Joltin Joe may have a shot. Rudy is already the one to beat, IMO.

I hope you speak of Bill Frist, Lash. That would be most excellent humor.

Mitt Romney, GOP gov. of MA, is a serious contender.

I'm sure you could find a handful of republican women who would vote for Hillary. Probably a few that swallow as well.

If Hillary would have swallowed, Bill wouldn't have had to go find that fat beret girl.

O'Bill, Gus.

There are several Democrat women who wouldn't vote for Hillary. Seriously. Women don't cross over for gender over ideology, planks and stuff that matters.

Although, damn them, they will vote "cute" sometimes.

sorry lash but there's not a man in the world that would pass up a blow job from a cute little chuuber with big tits and DSL's. It's just the way we're wired.

People have different standards.

She's not making it with the upper 27.5% of guys.

and I thought you knew a little.....

So, this recent, excellent article could be titled--
Women Really Don't Like Hillary, and btw, Carville is a shill.

7/11/2006
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, The "Woman Factor" and the Value of Empiricism in the 2008 Race

Filed under Politics, Election 2008, Democrats, Sex by Jim at 8:21 am

The 2008 presidential race among Democrats is distinctive because for the first time, a woman is seen as one of the leading contenders for nomination. This has led to a whole lot of supposition amongst the pundits and consultants who make their living by making claims up out of thin air and then sounding authoritative when proclaiming them to be true. James Carville, a political consultant long associated with the Clintons, recently wrote an editorial proclaiming the advantages of a Clinton 2008 presidential run. In that editorial, he made the following claim about the role of gender in politics, and how it would affect Hillary Clinton's chances:

Pundits and fundraisers and activists may be unsure of whether Hillary can get elected president, but Democratic voters, particularly Democratic women and even independent women, are thrilled with the idea.

The X factor for 2008 ?- and we do mean X ?- is the power of women in the electorate. Fifty-four percent of voters are female. George Bush increased his vote with only two groups between 2000 and 2004: women and Hispanics. Bush got 49 percent of white female voters in 2000 and 55 percent in 2004. Of his 3.5-percentage-point margin over John Kerry, Bush's increase with women accounted for 2.5 percentage points. The rest came from a nine-point increase among Hispanic voters: from 35 percent in 2000 to 44 percent in 2004. We believe that Hillary is uniquely capable of getting those swing voters back to the Democratic column.

Hillary's candidacy has the potential to reshape the electoral map for Democrats. Others argue they can add to John Kerry's 20 states and 252 electoral votes by adding Southern states, or Western or Midwestern, depending on their background. Hillary has the potential to mobilize people in every region of the country.

Certainly she could win the states John Kerry did. But with the pathbreaking possibility of this country's first female president, we could see an explosion of women voting ?- and voting Democratic. States that were close in the past, from Arkansas to Colorado to Florida to Ohio, could well move to the Democratic column. It takes only one more state to win.

Carville's not alone. Robert Kuttner of the Boston Globe agrees with James Carville when he writes, "Presumably, America's women will flock to Hillary." Sheesh ?- someone needs to tell James Carville and Robert Kuttner that her name is "Hillary Clinton," not "Hillary." But to get back to the point, I'm interested in the word "presumably." Presumably? What makes Kuttner's a reasonable presumption?

Carville and Kuttner assume that Hillary Clinton's candidacy will gain the support of women because she descriptively represents women. Descriptive representation, as Hannah Pitkin noted in 1967, is the sense in which a politician represents a class of citizens because he or she resembles them. But does descriptive representation lead to substantive representation, the match between a citizen's policy priorities and a politician's policy priorities? And how do people decide who to support ?- primarily by the descriptive appearance of a candidate, or more by the candidate's positions?

These are empirical questions, and Carville and Kuttner aren't being empirical when they make their claims. They're supposing and assuming and presuming. Rather than play pundit and pull a conclusion out of my posterior, I'd like to look at some actual data. Since November 3, 2004 Irregular Times has been offering Election 2008 bumper stickers, shirts and campaign buttons expressing support for the possible Democratic presidential contenders. And since we've been selling these items, we have also been paying attention to the number of items that we sell for each campaign. Instead of the weak and easy indicator of an opinion given over the telephone to a stranger, our own system for tracking candidates measures the kind of support that counts - whether ordinary Americans are willing to spend money to support a particular candidate in a visible way.

Yesterday, I went back through the data for the months of February through June, 2006, and looked at the gender (measured by first name, and omitting ambigous first names ?- apologies to the Pats of the world) of those who indicated their support for the various 2008 Democratic contenders. What percent of items supporting each candidate were bought by women? What percent were bought by men?

To ensure enough numbers for a reliable result, I looked only at candidates garnering at least a 5% share. Here's what I found:

% of Stickers, Shirts and Buttons Supporting a 2008 Candidate Bought By:
Candidate ...................Men ...........Women
For All Candidates ........60.1 ..................39.1
Russ Feingold ..............75.2 ..................24.8
Hillary Clinton ..............59.5 ................40.5
Al Gore ......................57.0 ...................43.0
Joe Biden..................... 51.4 ..................48.6
Barack Obama ..............47.9 ....................52.1

For all the fuss people make about Hillary Clinton being the "woman's candidate" for 2008, there isn't much empirical evidence of it in our results. The distribution of her supporters into men and women is pretty much the same as the sex distribution of all people buying 2008 electoral gear: about 3/5 men and 2/5 women. Al Gore actually does slightly better in attracting support from women than Hillary Clinton does, and Joseph Biden and Barack Obama attract women's support much more strongly than Hillary Clinton does. Only a single case, Russ Feingold, fits the "descriptive representation" pattern, attracting his supporters disproportionately from men; the other four candidates either show little gender pattern (Clinton and Gore) or the opposite gender pattern from what Carville and Kuttner predict. Just being a woman does not mean that one's supporters will be primarily women, and just because a candidate is a man doesn't mean that women will not be particularly drawn to him.

In conclusion, if James Carville really means what he says about the importance of a "woman's candidate," he should support a White House run by Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton. If Carville didn't really mean what he said, and is just shilling for a political patron, then he shouldn't be believed or even paid attention to. Instead of supposition, we should pay attention to empirical information when thinking about the 2008 candidates and the 2008 election.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just something I found re Hill and the chicks.