Why Women Might Not Vote for Hillary and Other Random Thoughts

Disclaimer: I know most of you who are so thoughtful to spend a minute of your day reading my blog are here for my 'creative genius' :)(such as it is), no creative goodies today. My inner politico is coming out so you can indulge me or stop reading and it won't hurt my feelings.



No surprise that our social studies teacher is a very politically oriented young man. I tend to indulge him and actually listen to his various epilogues on politics in America. I remember being that young and full of belief that one person or a particular party (in his case the dems) could solve all of the problems if they had complete power. Since I have become so disillusioned, I tend to listen and not actually have a dialogue --- it would be pointless. So yesterday of course we needed to discuss the Iowa Caucuses (which I personally feel like should be labeled carcases since some political careers die at this point).

He was still surprised the O'Bama won --- Iowa is the whitest state he said. (which I think is wrong and told him that) My pithy response was don't underestimate the power of Oprah. If we read books, lose weight, eat food, buy gifts all because Oprah said so, why would we not vote for a president. Heck ,if O did run for president we all know she would win. So then he said he was surprised more women didn't vote for Hillary. I said the are some reasons why women might not vote for her. He asked if there was an underground movement in women against her. I don't think so, at least I haven't been invited to any meetings. I offered a couple of light weight reasons.
1. People want real change (personally I believe impossible) so we Hillary as someone who was in the White House for 8 years and Congress since then. No change there
2. There are some women who don't understand why she didn't leave Bill other than for pure political reasons and find this slightly disturbing. And if you apply that slippery slope argument to other aspects of her career you have to wonder? Right

That satisfied my teacher for the moment and I thought me, but I woke up still thinking about this...I'm not sure if it's ignorance or arrogance for folks like my teacher and politicos across the land to make the statement 'Women will vote for Hillary because she is a woman' I'm sure we've all heard this a zillion times and not thought much about it, but this am it really made me mad. It assumes that:
1. I don't care about the issues or worse make assumptions that because Hillary is a woman she automatically feels the same way as I do on issues
2. I'm incapable of independent thought (ok maybe a stretch)

Grr...if the tables were reversed and there were 9 women and 1 man would the same statement occur? Unlikely.

On the flip side --- republicans not that much better, but if you think of the Hollywood title "Mr. Huckabee goes to Washington" or just hearing about President Huckabee you've got to smile.