Obama Losing the Uppity Woman Vote

"Uppity" women just aren't coming around to the Obamessiah:

It may seem as though the Democratic Party can give a sigh of relief: Women have returned to the fold, and will support Barack Obama for president - and presumably his party - after all. But not so fast.

While I and many other women in my demographic (older, professional, liberal) are likely to vote for Obama in November, our feelings about his party (and ours) are not so clear. We remember the perpetual misogyny and sexism of the media during the primary campaign - misogyny aimed less at Hillary Rodham Clinton herself than at "uppity women" (like ourselves) in general. And many of us feel that the Democratic Party is even more to blame than the media.

Let me mention a couple of reasons why I am thinking this way:

First, of course, is the failure of the party leaders to comment on the sexism rampant in the media, especially the liberal media, for months on end.

Second - and this factor bothers me, and no doubt others, perhaps the most: Why did the superdelegates move in such numbers to support Obama? Why did this occur, especially after Clinton victories? For example, I am thinking here of Robert Byrd. After Clinton's impressive victory in West Virginia, the senator and elder statesman representing that state came out in support of Obama. Because the superdelegates were created to ensure that the Democratic candidate be a centrist, why did so many superdelegates - including liberals and many women - support Obama? Two arguments were made: They wished to follow the will of the people in their district; and they believed that Obama was more electable. But as the Byrd case shows, the first claim was often false; and no one has any idea which of the two, Clinton or Obama, would be more electable in November. It seemed to me that the term was more often used as a kind of excuse, "I'm voting for Obama, but I can't really tell you why," than a reasoned argument.

So many women feel that the election was somehow stolen, and by their own party, to boot. They thus feel much the way many Democrats feel about the 2000 election: bitter. When one side feels that they lost an election fairly, any bitterness recedes early on (think of the 2004 election, by comparison). But when the adjective "stolen" leaps to mind, bitterness is apt to prevail, vanquishing any desire for reconciliation and cooperation. That is what many former Clinton supporters are feeling now.

We are disgusted with the party we have long trusted to represent our interests. We are disgusted with ourselves for being snookered - again. We assess the party leaders' rejection of Clinton as a cynical strategy. If Clinton had ended up as the candidate, the Democrats stood to lose the votes of many African Americans, who then might not vote at all. But if they made Obama the candidate? Well, then (the reasoning seems to have gone), the women always vote, and they will come around. Women always come around, no matter how badly they're mistreated.

The woman scorned axiom still holds true.