Hillary worked her a$$ off and withstood all that sexist crap because she believed it was time for a democrat in office. Those to throw there votes to the republicans in some misguided attempt to stand up for her are missing the point. If her historic run for the primary leads to four more years of republican leadership, then she will have truly lost.

To quote my mother: to do that is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

After 9/11 a large chunk of Bush's support came from insecure "soccer moms" who voted based almost solely on an irrational fear of a terrorist attack in rural Kansas. Now I have no proof of what kind of crossover their was between a democratic primary voter who was a woman and these same voters, but I think it's fair to say that voters (men and women) often make their decisions for quite irrational reasons. Women helped re-elect W, the worst president in our history, in spite of the threat he posed to their own interests, because they wanted to feel safe. Men helped re-elect W, because states across the country were allowing gays to marry and they couldn't stand the images of two dudes kissing.

Americans are often irrational and make choices that completely contradict their own needs. I don't personally expect this election cycle to be any different. Take a bunch of frustrated women who believe they lost their chance at a woman president and present them a candidate who promises to keep their children safe? I don't know. I would like to believe that we'll be smarter this time. But the last 8 years have proven us to be pretty stupid. So I won't be terribly surprised if there is some validity to this, regardless of whether the premise is sexist.

I have anecdotal information that this is true, as my mother is one of those Clinton supporters who will (probably) vote for McCain. I will try to convince her otherwise, but I will be halfhearted about it. Advice is welcome. Mild racism may be a factor, not to mention skepticism which I myself can't retort. My mother claims she knows others in her position.

Except for the members of the critique group who were already voting Republican.

However, my mom isn't pissed that a woman didn't win, she just hates Obama. I'm not quite sure why. She's not racist - at least not in my experience - but she says things like "Oh, the papers said Obama will win, we're all doomed." Heavy sigh. When I ask her why she objects to Obama, she says it's because she doesn't know anything about him and he refuses to take a solid position on anything. I've pointed out that not taking a position is at least an improvement over McCain, who has many solid positions, all wrong-headed, but although she agrees with me about McCain, she's still convinced Obama means doom.

The Obama = doom business seems to have started during the flap over Rev. Wright.

That women voters can't respond as well to their political choices as men do...for that matter, we have proof that men can't either. In 2004, a majority of men and women voted for George Bush over John Kerry. Now, just a short three years later, Bush is universally regarded as a dismal failure as president. Indeed, for all of Kerry's many shortcomings, it is difficult to see how he could have been anything but a substantial improvement over Bush. Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20, but Men and Women both neglected their own plitical, economic, moral and ethical interests to re-elect George Bush.

Why shouldn't McCain believe he can get them -- both men and women -- to do it again? A little fear, a little smear, a little disapointment and bingo...you've won Ohio.

are going to be crying when Mccain increases the deficit, attacks Iran, and challenges a woman's right to choose.

I think what may be going on is that Clinton attracted many moderate Republican women by virtue of her gender. (And nothing in the least wrong with that-one of the touching side stories to emerge was the female supporters taking their daughters and grand daughters to rallies.)

My suspicion is that it's true a number of women who would have supported Clinton will now support McCain, but I have serious doubts that they were Democrats. I think if you ask most of them who they voted for in '00 and '04 they would tell you "Bush."

Careful. I agree with the thrust of what you're saying but it could be interpreted as sexist.

I think it's more accurate to say a large number of Americans, indeed people, tend to-by nature-put their short term interests ahead of their long term, their fears ahead of their hopes, and themselves and their families ahead of their communities as a whole. Businesses know this-that's why they charge can charge $20/month and people will still pay even though they can get the same service for $160 by paying for a year up front.

This is not just soccer moms-it's human nature, and particularly prevalent in Americans.

voting for McCain just because Three Names lost, either. The piece of information that one needs is how many Republican women in a sexist outburst voted for Three Names just because she was a woman. Those women are almost certainly going to return to their normal voting patterns. The fact that she did best in primaries where the chance that Republicans could, would, and did vote in the Democratic primary suggests that some number of them are out there. How many?

That's the name of John Dickinson's article on Slate about this precise issue. Unlike other articles mentioned in this story, John's whole point (if you assume this story of disaffected women voters is true) that based on shear mathematics alone, this unwinable audience won't play much of a role in the general election anyway.

For example, even if Hillary's 18 million "voices" we a solid block, and if 20% say they will vote for McCain, that's only about 3.6 million voters. Sounds like a lot, but once you narrow it down to those voters with this sentiment in battleground states like VA, MO, NM, etc., then this number becomes almost statistically insignificant.

And again, that's assume a lot of those folks were Democrats...which many of them weren't, and while some may have voted for Hillary now, it's impossible to tell if they STILL would have voted for her in Nov.