...she's Hillary Clinton. I think her reputation (good or bad, depending on who you ask), her name recognition and her place in national politics trumps the gender issue. I have a feeling very few people will consider it voting for a woman when it comes to Clinton.

The biggest damage Hilary's doomed run will do is to future female candidates for president, who will have to contend with "People just aren't ready for a woman president. If Hilary couldn't even win the nomination..."

Hilary will lose, and lose big, but it will have nothing to her being a woman, or Bill's wife, or the target of wingnut fury, or any other ridiculous theory the punditocracy comes up with.

Hillary will lose, and lose big, in the Democratic primaries, because she is a republican. She is pro-war, pro-corporations, pro-torture, pro-globalization, pro-wealthy, anti-tax, anti-civil rights, anti-choice, anti-poor and middle-class, anti-environment, anti-jobs, anti-labor - need I go on?

Women would do well to put a stop immediately to the idea that Hilary represents women or Democrats.

She doesn't. Never has. Never will.

I am shocked, shocked, "that a significant percentage of people are hiding their true feelings" about the idea of a woman as president. Give me a break. The only people who are shocked are the Beltway pundits salivating over the idea of a white woman/black man presidential face-off.

The polls showing that 90% say they'd be comfortable with a woman president are pretty useless. The 55% who say, in general, that the country is ready for a woman president* is much closer to the truth. It allows someone the cover to say, "well, I'd be okay with it, but I'm not so sure about my neighbor."

*http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/03/opinion/polls/main1281319.shtml

"President Pelosi" is sounding better all the time.

...but they can get over it.

Britan got over it. Germany got over it. France may be about to get over it.

Even India and Pakistan got over it, and those countries aren't known for stellar records on women's rights.

Women governors and senators aren't something to even mention anymore, even in conservative states. If Hillary runs a good campaign, she can win. And if she loses, she won't set women back, no matter what the hysterics like to say.

but I won't vote for Hillary. I'm not in favor of American political dynasties.

The first INTELLIGENT president we've had in a long, long time.

I will vote for the most qualified candidate, regardless of race, gender, color, or anything else.

Specifically, I will not vote for Clinton, not because she is a woman, but because she has proven herself to be an overly calculating and ambitious opportunist for her own good. She could change position any time for the sake of winning. In addition, I don't want a second-run of a political family and I want a fresh new talent so the country can have a new beginning.

All right, permit me to roll my eyes for a bit here, especially at this blog which is dissing the pundits and, in a scary meta fashion, doing the same thing: speculating about the impact of Hillary's gender and Barack's race. Come ON. Let's talk about issues! Clinton's pro-war vote. Obama's anti-war vote. For example. Or hmm, Clinton's "prayin' woman" rhetoric which, thank Booji, fooled nobody. Or hey, Obama's lack of insider experience and whether that's a good thing (I think so) or a bad thing (I don't think so).

Above all, let's for a moment luxuriate in the hope that for once, perhaps, the American people will finally find candidates they can get behind FOR WHATEVER REASON, rather than sigh and head to the polls to vote for a lesser of two evils. Let's fervently hope that perhaps the American people will get their collective cranium out of their collective arse and vote for a candidate that at the very least promises to solve problems, rather than "sounds like the guy/gal you can have beer with."

What I, as an American citizen, would like is a candidate who can firmly, without equivocations, promise me a) the end of American involvement in Iraq, ASAP, b) repeal of the tax cuts, c) an effort to end our dependence on oil, d) an effort to REBUILD NEW ORLEANS that everyone seems to have forgotten about, e) a reversal of each and every scary Big Brother initiative by this administration, and f) other things I have no time to list. If they can at least firmly promise, I'll be happy, because it'll be a start, don't you think?

If a candidate can promise me that and convince me (oh, sweet hope!) that they can actually do at least one of those things, well, maybe two, I will vote for them without reservations, be they male, female or Klingon. Wouldn't you?

Will Americans vote? With turnouts like ours we might as well have a monkey throw darts at a dartboard.

Whether they set out to directly measure it or not, I think the researchers at NIU were tapping the "Hillary effect". She's the most obvious female candidate and that puts her top of mind for survey respondents. How many were conservative Republicans who saw Hillary's face when asked to consider their anger over a woman president? The NIU press release suggests the findings held across most demographic groups, but before I put any stock into their conclusions, I'd like to know if they held across party ID or ideology.

The researchers obtained a base number using those four statements, then added a fifth: "a woman serving as president." With that statement in the mix, the mean number of "angry or upset" responses increased by so much that the researchers believe that about 26 percent of their respondents were troubled by the "woman serving as president" addition.

Maybe they were upset that the researcher appeared to be insulting their intelligence by suggesting that the gender of a candidate could be at issue. Maybe they were annoyed at how long it was taking to answer all these damn questions. Maybe the respondents immediately thought of the most likely woman candidate for 2008, and this is really a measure of how much people don't like Hillary. Corallation is not causation.