I've said this before and I'll say it again. More women will end up voting for Hillary in the primary that are willing to admit it. Among a certain class of women its cache to say you can't stand Hillary. Once in the voting booth, however, they'll realize this might be the only chance in their lifetime to see a woman president.

I say this as an Obama supporter and this prospect worries me, because there is nothing you can do to counter it.

Look at the real poll, the votes. Her strength among women in the last two senate races is undeniable. Both times, the votes matched or exceeded the prior-election polls.

How is this a suprise?  If Hillary wins the nomination, I would vote for her.  I would not vote for a Republipuke under any circumstance.

Women don't want their first woman president to screw up and reflect badly on all women. But Clinton has succeeded in every stage of her life since high school. There's no reason to believe she wouldn't be a great president. At this moment, I don't trust any more empty suits men to take care of business. We need women to get down to business and change the system. That could be a Hillary Clinton, Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Cindy Sheehan, Marian Wright Edelman, anyone!

--Donna Darko

"Clinton is drawing especially strong support from lower-income, lesser-educated women -- voters her campaign strategists describe as "women with needs.""

Quindlen's quote reflects what I said which is it will take a woman to really take care of business.

A lot of Hillary's negatives come from what people think her reaction to her husband's infidelity says about her, her character, her ambition.  That issue has died down somewhat but I think it's right there under the surface and won't take much to bring it to the surface.  

I stopped going to Huffington Post for this exact reason.  Why is MYDD front paging all of the silly pieces that offer no substance on Hillary?  Hillary is way ahead with women.  Who cares if some "feminist"(mind you not the feminist who advocate for women professionally) don't like Hillary.  My guess is they don't care about the bread and butter issues, and they want revenge for Iraq more than a solution.  Also, this stuff about would you vote for a woman, this is insignificant precisely because it is in the margin of error.  What a pointless piece.

The difference between 88% and 85% is statistically insignificant.  My guess is that if you conducted another poll, you might just get them transposed at 85% and 88%.  And thus?

In speaking with Democrats about the choice between Edwards, Obama and Clinton, be they men or women, I have found that many active Democrats know that Hillary Clinton is the only one of the three who is taking money from corporations and corporate PAC's.  Both the male and female Democrats that I have spoken to find this more meaningful than gender because they believe corporate money has fully corrupted our Democracy to its core.  You cannot shake them from this belief no matter how many excuses you offer them.  They want it to stop, and they respect Edwards and Obama for not feeding at the corporate trough.

And many active Democrats that I talk to also believe that Hillary Clinton is likely to be too much like Bill Clinton.  They believe that Bill Clinton was too moderate, somebody who spent too much time triangulating and not enough time leading for fundamental, lasting progressive change in America.  In short, he squandered many many days in the presidency.  And for whatever reason, Bill Clinton could not lead his party to a majority in the House in 1996 and 1998, after losing the House in 1994.  

Bill Clinton just didn't have it in him to lead the Democratic party.  In fact, nine times out of ten, in the 90's, you had the Democratic position and the Republican position, and Bill Clinton was always putting himself right down the middle.  He always seemed to be leading a party of one, the Bill Clinton party.

But more than a failure of leadership, Bill Clinton further greatly handicapped Al Gore's chances of succeeding him by engaging in his extra-marital affair with his own employee, Monica Lewinsky.  Had there been no Monica Lewinsky affair, the 2000 election would not have even been close.  The world would not be suffering under Bush at this very moment.

So...for many active Democrats, men and women, Hillary Clinton's connection to Bill Clinton is actually a reason NOT to vote for her.

The men who won't vote for Hillary are predominately in two camps - the progressive netroots Dems who hate her; and the rightwing, redneck bible-thumpers who hate her.  In other words, the fringe elements of both parties.

Hillary has an excellent chance of winning the support of men who don't fall into these two extreme categories which, thankfully, do not represent the majority of voting men.

I am a woman.  I know many men who admire Hillary Clinton, for a variety of reasons.  I don't know how they will vote, but they speak highly of her.
My own significant other is still holding out for Al Gore, but Hillary is his second choice and Biden his third.

IMHO, it's not that Hillary has a feminist problem; it's that what Mark Penn said is absolutely right: Hillary is the Walter Mondale of this race, and Obama is its Gary Hart.  I think he was dumb to say it out loud, but he's smart to realize it.

Obama's scoring well with the socioeconomic strata  that Hart, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and others in that vein have drawn their support from.  It isn't that Hillary has a 'problem' with college-educated women; it's that her main opponent is strongest with college-educated people of both sexes.

Hillary, OTOH, is stronger amongst working-class Americans for the same reason Mondale was: they've both got track records that lead them to believe s/he's not going to forget them after the election.  They aren't so sure about Obama, just the way they weren't so sure about Hart.  And for good reason, I expect.

The difference between Hillary/Obama and Mondale/Hart is that instead of two white men, we've got a white woman and a black man, and they're both getting unusually strong support from their own.  Hillary's getting a lot of support from women, but it ends with those who know what she really stands for.  And Obama's getting a level of support from blacks that your Hart, Tsongas, Bradley, or Dukakis never got during the nomination contest, which is what gives him a chance in this race.  But black Dems still have reservations about him: if he was decisively winning the battle for African-American support, this race would be a LOT closer.

Which, oddly enough, has squeezed Edwards out of the picture with respect to African-American support.  And he's the candidate who's got the most interest in addressing poverty/underclass issues that still affect blacks far more disproportionately than other groups.

It's a strange year.

Imagine you are an older woman who always subsumed your role to men, who took not only your husband's last name, but also his first, insisting on formally being called Mrs. John Doe, and so on.  How do you react to feminists and a woman running for president?

Some, of course, will think it's great that this generation has it better than their's.

But to many, they feel they are being told they were not good enough.  Taking your husband's name is degrading, they are told; meaning they were degraded.  Did they waste their lives?  No, that is too painful, so the new rules must be bad.

It is very similar to being told your child died in a war for no good reason.  Too painful to consider, so it must be violently rejected.

My wife's grandmother and great aunt were like that and I've met others as well.  And to be quite honest, I understand.  

I don't know how many women she needs in terms of sheer numbers, but I've been to the events for women where Hillary Clinton packs the house - it's really a sight to behold.  And her women's groups within her campaign are going strong.  The National Women's Political Caucus today released a statement endorsing Hillary Clinton.  She has a great deal of support from women and I think it's growing.

Had a similar "woman problem."  Which is to say, none at all.

I doubt that Hillary has a "feminist problem" any more than she has a "woman problem."  What she has, I think, is a "writer problem" - they don't prefer Hillary, and rather than accept that for whatever reason, their views differ from the public as a whole, they attempt to describe their views as the norm for some nebulous elite.

As for this:

Clinton is drawing especially strong support from lower-income, lesser-educated women -- voters her campaign strategists describe as "women with needs." Obama, by contrast, is faring better among highly educated women, who his campaign says are interested in elevating the political discourse.

This is not a surprise.  This is expected; Hillary Clinton is the safe choice and as such, she is the preferred choice of "voters with needs," women included.  The exact same dynamic was at work among voters in the Democratic primary in 2004.

Look at the Wisconsin exit polls: Kerry and Edwards were separated by 7 points, but Kerry, being the frontrunner and thus the safe choice, outperformed Edwards among women, people of color, low income voters, voters who described their financial situation as "worse", voters with less education, etc.  The "voters with needs" avoid risk; Kerry was the safe candidate, and they chose Kerry.

Hillary is the safe candidate, and thus, "voters with needs" choose Hillary.

I'd happily vote for a woman Pres. And I like alot about Hillary Clinton.

But I'm not likely to vote for Hillary in the primary because of her politics: She won't work to get U.S. soldiers out of Iraq; she's not strongly for single payor health care; she has strong anti-labor organizers on her staff; and she's too tied to corporate interests.

When Bill was Pres, I preferred Hillary's perspective because she had a more progressive viewpoint on most issues. I would have voted for Hillary then. But less so now.

It has nothing to do with her womanhood. It's all about her politics. If she were to make more progressive political statements, I'd support Hillary in a New York minute.

She's not a lefty but an "officer" of the DLC and that would be Ok except that she isn't candid about her politics. She pretends, throws around the word "progressive" but hasn't announced progressive or reform policies.

She has not announced a health care Plan, the Plan part, only speaks platitudes on the value of health care.

Why does Hillary want to be president? Has she ever said? Do Barack or John ever speak without saying why, at least once?

polls like this are complete nonsense. 88% of men saying they'll vote for Clinton are mostly the same as the people that will tell you they're not racist, i.e., they answer the question based on their dishonest perceptions of themselves (who they think they would like to be instead of who they are). In this case, men who think they're "liberated" when in fact they're not....and the question even built in their easy out about qualification: a substantial number of those 88 percenters will surely come to the conclusion that Clinton is NOT qualified.

Many women will vote for Clinton because 1) she is a women and 2) she is substantially qualified. I'd guess less than half of the 88% men will vote for her (for those same reasons) and the rest will not vote for her because of (1) but will use their determination of her not meeting (2) as their rationale.
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Haven't past polls always shown that women are less likely to vote for women candidates (but more likely to consider voting for non-hetero/white/male candidates), and less optimistic about women candidates' chances to win?  I recall seeing similar numbers many times before.  

I don't think this is a HRC-related phenomenon, regardless of her popularity or lack thereof in certain demographic groups.  

Shifting to "race", here on mydd.com we have seen a diary or two about African Americans' more realistic/jaded/pessimistic views on Obama's chances.  While optimism != support, I could imagine that pessimism about a candidate's chances is related to voting patterns.

Women can be tougher on women than men. Some just don't think the country will elect a female president.  Obama's got a similar problem. Some blacks are reluctant to support him because they believe that America would never elect a black president.