Did New Hampshire women vote for Clinton out of”sympathy”? Two of the “big” Supposedly Liberal Dood bloggers think so, Kos from Daily Kos and Atrios from Eschaton. Kos writes in part:
The more she’s attacked on personal grounds, the more sympathy that real person will generate, the more votes she’ll win from people sending a message to the media and her critics that they’ve gone way over the line of common decency. You underestimate that sympathy at your own peril. If I found myself half-rooting for her given the crap that was being flung at her, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves to send a message that sexist double-standards were unacceptable?
People like Kos and Atrios have a hard time comprehending the possibility that women vote on issues. So it must be “sympathy” that drives us, given how overly emotional we are and all.
–Ann Bartow
Updated to add: Sweet jeebus how I hate Maureen Dowd. But my primary vote will still be issues based, despite Dowd’s obvious effort to drum up sympathy votes for Clinton by viciously excoriating her. Or something.
Ann:
How is this so different than the analysis in the Salon piece linked in a post above? The argument there was that Hillary got some votes from people who were motivated because of the poor (read “sexist”) treatment she got from pundits in the media. I find that plausible. Do you not find that plausible, or do you think the Salon article is saying something different than what you quote above?
I posted the link because somebody in the blogroll asked me to. Doesn’t mean I endorse all her conclusions.
If Kos or Atrios or Traister have some actual data on which to base the assertion that women vote based on “sympathy” but men vote based on “issues” I’d be interested in seeing it.
I do think Traister is spot on about Chris Matthews.
I think a lot of folks are looking for explanations for why the polls on the Dem side of the vote were so far off. Some people are citing “the Bradley effect” (as readers of this blog likely know, that’s when white voters say they will vote for a black more than they really will vote for blacks). But some have said that’s not true because Obama got pretty much what the polls said he was going to get while Hillary got more.
The idea that some folks were sufficiently ticked off at the sexist coverage of Hillary that they moved from “undecided” (or from another, non-Obama) to Hillary candidate strikes me as plausible — and I don’t think that’s entirely the same thing as saying “women vote on sympathy but men vote on issues.” But as you say, it would be nice to see some data supporting that, or some other explanation, of the surprising result.
All we know about the demographics of the actual voters may be just as flawed as what was erroneously believed about likely voters before the election was held. But assuming the exit polls were correct, maybe women say they will vote for a woman less than they will really vote for a women, because they are tired of being accused of supporting Clinton simply because they have vaginas.