Letters to the Editor
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Clinton's real problem
Clinton's real problem is not that she is a woman, her real problem is that she is Hillary Clinton.
What do I mean by that? She entered the race with incredibly high negatives among voters in general. Rightly or wrongly, they were there. That's just a fact. This effectively precluded her approaching it as anything other than a "50% + 1" proposition - there was, and is, a significant chunk of the population that would not vote for her under any imaginable circumstances. In fact, many of that number would put in an extra effort to vote for someone opposing her. (More below...)
Once things began to go in different ways than her campaign had intended, she became quite overtly negative towards a fellow Democratic candidate. "Not as far as I know...", "3 AM...", "the Commander-in-Chief threshold..." and more made it very difficult to bring in anyone not already behind her. In fact, to many Obama supporters, she seemed to be doing McCain's dirty work for him.
And there is the matter of that unaddressed Iraq AUMF vote.
What I'd always worried about with Clinton was her potential effect downticket. Bringing out legions of "anti-Clinton" voters in November could cost Democrats dearly in Congressional and state legislative elections - especially important when we consider that the 2010 off-year cycle will form the legislatures that will do the redistricting. Would it hurt to give more Dems at the state level the advantages of incumbency? Just this once? For something really important?
I say all of this as a Minnesotan represented by a woman in Congress and a woman in the Senate. I will gladly vote for them for as long as they seek office. Higher office? I'm there too...
Yes, "Iron my shirt!" was stupid and sexist. And Geraldine Ferraro's as-yet-unapologized-for comments were blatantly racist. Jerks and racists are not going to vote for most Democrats anyway, are they? Really?
Disliking a candidate because of the person they are, rather than the demographic they represent, is quite different. And last time I looked, still permitted.