UNITY CONSCIOUSNESS: THE WOMEN’S VOTE ’08
The women’s vote is represented less in the media than even Hilary Clinton, who is given far less airtime and frontpage space than Obama and McCain. Yet it is the women’s vote that is keeping her presidential campaign headed toward the White House. From New Hampshire to California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, Texas, and the crucial swing state Ohio, it was the women’s vote that made the difference. In Pennsylvania, we can expect to see it happen again, since she grew up in Pennsylvania, and also because Pennsylvania closely resembles Ohio and New Jersey. The reality is, many women want to see a woman in the White House, and are turning out in record numbers to vote. It is a mandate the news media hardly mentions, but it is historic and real, and may well make Hilary Clinton the first woman President of the United States. Her ability to call out the Caucasian and Hispanic women’s vote has challenged Obama’s momentum at every crucial milestone of the Democratic primary trail. If the women’s vote has its say in ’08, you can watch for classic women’s political positions to come foreground: women voters are historically anti-nuclear, anti-militarism, pro-environment, pro-domestic economy, pro-health care reform, pro-reproductive rights, pro-education, and concerned about children, families and the elderly. Women also tend to value the cohesion of the group over individualism, and many women see this attitude reflected in the fact that Hilary Clinton has made gestures to share the ticket if she ends up winning her party’s nomination, whereas Obama has made it more than clear that if he wins the nomination, he has no intention of sharing the ticket with her. For many women, that speaks for itself in a masculine epoch of winners and losers and self-created scarcity. Watch video here.
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