It seems to me as if the connection for both men and women to Senator Clinton wasn't just that she's a woman, but a woman with a dramatic, compelling life story.
You know the bio. It's nothing if not operatic. Years in Arkansas politics. Her hands-on micromanagement of President Clintons chaotic political campaigns, as well as two successful presidential campaigns. Eight years as an embattled first lady -- the strongest and, therefore, most criticized first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. And then, of course, being forced to deal with the president's cheating. The Lewinsky humiliation and the impeachment. Then two triumphant, cathartic runs for the Senate. And to cap it all off, 18 million votes in the seemingly endless Democratic primary campaign.
Regardless of whether you supported her, it's this life story -- the bold, dramatic, tenacious career of a remarkable woman -- that brought together so many diehard supporters.
Yet the predictably cynical McBush Republicans are betting that these emotionally invested Clinton primary voters (not the PUMAs, just the average voters and volunteers) can be duped into believing that Governor Palin's comparatively thin story is a satisfactory replacement for Senator Clinton? The McBush calculation being -- What's the difference? A woman is a woman.
So my question is this... How is that not a condescending, misogynistic insult to the very women who McCain is trying to win over?
ADDING: It was also Senator Clinton's "solutions" -- her policies and plans, that made her so appealing to those 18 million loyal supporters. In fact, one of her most effective slogans was "Solutions for America," and the gripe we always heard from Clinton people about Senator Obama was that his solutions were murky and nonspecific. Yet Governor Palin's solutions are to tell rape victims they can't have the morning after pill. To tell public school science teachers that they have to include fiction in their curriculum. To drill in protected areas of planet. To flip-flop on issues like the Bridge to Nowhere. I refuse to believe that these far-right mandates would substitute for Senator Clinton's solutions.