If not Hillary, then McCain.

This is a really interesting post from a perspective I had not yet focused on.

They saw a woman being President as the best way to gender equality for themselves. Their experience tells them that men do not have a history of seeking gender equality once they are elected. They talk the talk but don’t come through in the end.

These are women in their 60s and 70s. They’ve heard, “Even though I’m a man, I’ll vote for women’s issues” a few too many times to believe them anymore.

I guess they believe Obama’s a male politician posing as a Feminist to seduce women into voting for him.

But, ultimately, they believe, he’ll ignore gender equity for the “really important” issues like War, energy, campaign finance or whatever else pushes their issues to the bottom of the list – never to be dealt with.

For them, and for many, that was what it was about. “We’ll deal with your issues as soon as we’re done with the REALLY IMPORTANT ones,” is a message these older women have heard their whole lives. The trouble is that the “really important” ones get replaced by new “really important” ones, and which never turn out to be their issues.

This has happened simultaneously with these women become the sole financial providers, while remaining the only child-care takers, in their families with the entire capitalistic, political and social system stacked against them getting ahead.

They believe their gender equity issues are legitimate economic equity issues. In other words they believe they have the REALLY Important issues. They are no longer willing to see other issues as more important, or more valid, than their own.

And they don’t believe any color of man is going to ever elevate their issues to “really important” status.

I guess if you believe Obama is going to blow women’s issues off and you know McCain doesn’t care about them at all – it’s a wash.

Some are talking voting for McCain, some are talking writing her in. Some are talking about abstaining from the election.

They want him to pick Hillary as a running mate.

I don’t know how many of them there are. I’ve seen their Internet presence. I’ve talked to them at the Convention. I’ve read about them in the NY Times.

But, they were pretty quiet in the general assemblies and there were far more Obama delegates because he really got people to the Caucus. They were more vocal when not surrounded by Obama supporters.

So I don’t have a good indication of whether this is something that will have any effect at all on the actual election in Nov.

Certainly there is room for Barack to make peace with Hillary’s 18 million supporters.

The only way to win these women back, from what I heard, was to name Hillary as VP.

I wish I knew if they had the numbers to make it vital for Barack to do so.

Their position is that nodding your head and saying, “I think your issue is important” is not the same as taking action on your issues. It’s simply placating you so you’ll shut up and support them. They believe that’s what Barack Obama is doing.