The gender gap in Oregon is HUGE

[ruggerson]

Amongst women, Hillary and Barack are in a virtual tie.

Amongst men, Barack leads Hillary by thirty points.

Amazing.

Vote by Gender

Clinton Obama
Male (45%) 34% 63%
Female (55%) 49% 50%

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#ORDEM

[anonymous171]

1. Whoah. That is interesting. nt

[scheming daemons]

2. Yes... 50% of Oregon women - in a very progressive state - don't buy into the sexism argument....

[ruggerson]

6. well that's one way of interpreting it

if you think this entire election is about racism and sexism.

[babylonsister]

3. Damn, I love Oregon. And you...

:* That's a kiss from me.

[ruggerson]

9. right back atcha

:*

[Lefty-Taylor]

17. B-Sister, As a proud Portland progressive, I'll take that kiss & send one back at you! Great night!

[babylonsister]

20. Thanks! Got it! Great night! nt

[jsamuel]

4. if that were whites vs blacks, we would be hearing about racial prejudice

but when it is men vs women, it doesn't make the radar

[Orangepeel]

11. CLINTON CAN'T WIN MEN! HOW COULD SHE EVER BEAT MCCAIN!

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEEDS THE MALE VOTE!!!!!


:sarcasm:

[scheming daemons]

12. BINGO. Hillary can't win among hard-working men.

tee hee.

[jsamuel]

13. you are free to make that argument

just don't be surprised when people dislike it

[pocoloco]

14. ?

??

[QC]

5. It's been interesting to see that sex trumps race for most men. n/t

[bunnies]

24. Sex trumps *everything* for most men.

:evilgrin: :hide:

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. Sex? Perhaps. Gender? No. n/t

[thoughtcrime1984]

27. In SOME states. Not Kentucky, WV, or any of Appalachia, for that matter. nt

[lastliberalintexas]

28. But not surprising

Most women already knew that, but it has been interesting to see it confirmed so publicly, even if well below the media radar.

[BlueJac]

7. I live here we are Obama, 10-1 yard signs

[rwheeler31]

8. Thank you KPOJ.

[ruggerson]

16. what did KPOJ do?

[rwheeler31]

19. The education station.

[Barack_America]

10. The curious thing to me is this margin with males in a CLOSED primary.

Independent males have consistently not shown Hillary the love. But Dem males? Have we seen a split like this in a closed primary?

[anigbrowl]

15. Sigh...why can't she close the deal with men? (j/k)

[woolldog]

18. Wow. 50% of women in Oregon are sexist against men.

;-)

[Peace Patriot]

21. I think this stat may be misleading as to the reasons WHY men support Obama,

and also as to the reasons why a disproportionate number of women support Clinton--that is, the real reason for the discrepancy. This is not scientific, just my gut feeling. But I think the men are recognizing that Obama is the better candidate--on issues of war, and corporate mis-rule--quicker than some of the women voters, who are coming at these issues from a different angle--women's equality. War and corporate mis-rule are the biggest oppressors of women--most particularly poor and middle class women (the vast majority). And Clinton is simply very bad on these issues. It's all fine and good to have the right to birth control and abortion, for instance, but if you can't afford either, what good is your right? And, if you can't afford to HAVE a child--can't support it--what good is your right to choose? Clinton has consistently sided with those who are pouring billions and billions and billions of our tax dollars--our government treasuries to the 7th generation--into A CORPORATE RESOURCE WAR that is impoverishing us all. She has consistently supported "free trade" policies that have impoverished billions of third world women, and that are now severely impacting women here--who have to work two and three shit-pay jobs to feed and clothe their children and keep a roof over their heads.

I think that a lot of women's votes for Clinton are based on the notion that, because she is woman, she will be a stronger protector of women's equality. It is also an historic candidacy--the first women with a serious chance at becoming president. I think a lot of women feel that fervor--that, at long last, we will be assured equality because "one of our own" will be President of the United States. But if you take social justice into consideration, the benefits of a Hillary Clinton presidency for women become very thin, and almost meaningless, in view of the cost of this war and continued global corporate predator rule, both of which she strongly supports. Obama is not great on these issues, but he is BETTER THAN CLINTON, and inspires more hope that the interests of the majority--including the majority of women--will be better served by an Obama administration.

Male voters likely don't feel the profound threat to women's rights and equality that the Bush Junta has presented, to the extent that women do--and which, in some women voters, results in a determination to have a woman as president. Period. But, to my mind, supporting Obama is the wiser choice. He is certainly supportive of women's rights and equality, but, more than this, champions change--a government that advocates for all us, and not for war profiteers and other corporate powers--a government that is beholden to the People, and not to "organized money" (as FDR put it), and that pursues policies of peace and cooperation with the rest of the world (--as opposed to Clinton, who mouths aggressive Bushite platitudes on Iran, on South America and other foreign policy issues). It could be argued that Obama has a more feminist outlook on things than Clinton does--if you grant that feminism is anti-war, pro-diplomacy, pro-cooperation and more wholistic in its view of both human life and the environment. And it is a strange irony, indeed, that men would be voting in greater numbers for that more peaceful and wholistic (and democratic) viewpoint, than women are. Maybe it's true, after all, that men are more objective!

Ha-ha! That's coming from a FEMINIST. (You better believe it!) Torn, yeah. A woman president would be a great event. But a Margaret Thatcher type? Not so great. A woman waving the flag and leading the military parade into the Falklands (or Iran, or Venezuela, or...)? A woman tightening the belts of the poor to make the rich richer? That's just corporatism, which has no sex, only fat bank accounts and POWER at the expense of the poor. Obama isn't a woman, but he HAS been poor. And, what is perhaps more important, identifies with poor. He may not be FDR ("Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred!"--FDR). But he is the best candidate for the interests of the majority, as I think more women voters will come to understand.

Bear in mind also that these are PRIMARIES. In 1968, I voted for Eugene McCarthy for president in the California primary--rather than Bobby Kennedy--not because I believed that Eugene McCarthy would have made a better president, but because McCarthy had a stronger position against the Vietnam War. I knew Bobby would win. I knew he was the best candidate. I wanted to "send him a message" to keep his word on ending the war. Primary voters are sometimes voting on ISSUES--and that looks to me to be the case with some Clinton voters in these primaries. Some women are still voting the women's equality issue, even though it's clear that Obama will be the candidate. They are not voting against Obama. They are "sending him a message." (--some women voters, not all--the ones who are creating this discrepancy.)

[KoKo]

22. The reasons you so clearly stated were why I finally voted for Obama in the

Primary...and I was very torn...agonized over it. But, it came down to trusting a "new person" who might have a wobbly time getting started over the "experienced Clintons" who could come in and hit the ground running with full staff. The more I saw how Hillary handled her Campaign, the people involved and some of her rash statements...I just couldn't trust "experience" over the people I knew Obama had surrounded himself with. I still worry that some issue will come out about Obama that will be flamed into some last minute problem costing him the election...and for that reason I'm glad Hillary has stayed in for the long haul...but assuming that doesn't happen I'll go with foreign policy change and hopefully some more hard hitting, detailed investigations about the BFEE/Cheney crimes and the rest over having the first woman President who could turn out like Maggie Thatcher.

Nevertheless, the vitriol and crude name calling against Hillary has had a sexist tone that I think needs to be recognized. The Media and some of the Obama supporters on the Liberal Blogs have caused some rifts that will need to be repaired.

Thanks for your post....wise as usual... :-)'s

[Peace Patriot]

25. I've seen enough troll crap here at DU, to know what the Pukes are up to in the

blogosphere. I simply don't believe that Obama supporters are sexist. It makes absolutely no sense. It is classic Puke "divide and conquer." The Clinton campaign--and Clinton herself--have made some stupid mistakes that open them to a charge of racism, but I don't believe that either. It's just that it gives the Pukes a wedge--who would like nothing more than to see two of the Democrats' major voting groups at each other's throats.

I think it's just too damned bad--a great misfortune--that the first woman candidate with a chance of becoming president--has made such mistakes, and also has a history of supporting war and corporate interests. She had the paid agent of a foreign government--Colombia--with one of the worst human rights records on the planet--as her chief campaign strategist! What kind of judgment is that? I would love to see a woman president, but because of Clinton's mistakes and mostly because of her policies, I am not going to see it my lifetime. That is what she has done to the feminist cause--associated it with racism, corporatism and war. What a tragedy!

I do think, however, that the majority of Americans will not be greatly affected by this mostly manufactured "bitterness" of the primary fight. The American people have proven themselves to be amazingly resistance to the Bushite warmongering and fascist propaganda of the corporate news monopolies. They are getting to be like South Americans--who simply ignore corporate newscrap, and keep voting for Leftists (all over the continent!). It's a stat that not many people know--because it was black-holed in the corporate "news"--but FIFTY-SIX PERCENT of the American people opposed the invasion of Iraq (Feb. '03, NYT poll; other polls 54-55%). 56% is a significant majority. It has now grown to an unprecedented, epochal SEVENTY PERCENT anti-war majority. I think Americans are much better informed than anyone gives them credit for, and have the common sense to realize that most of what the corporate "news" jerks are going on about is just crap. They are well aware of what the war and corporatism have done. They are living its ravages every day. And they are fed up with politicians who have gone along with it. Obama's rather amazing campaign (when you think about it) has NOTHING to do with Clinton being a woman, and everything to do with her policies, which many male politicians have also supported--some of whom could be in her position now, losing the nomination to a people-driven insurgency. I think her sex is completely irrelevant to most Americans. They want RELIEF from warmongering and corporate thievery! And they couldn't care less about the sex or race of the leader who would give them that desperately needed relief, and a new sense of hope and renewal.

Whether their votes will be fully counted is of much more concern to me than whether we can put this corporate media-stoked, race/sex division behind us. I think we will easily put it behind us, because it is mostly not real. The riggable voting machines are a far greater danger--so much so that one could get very suspicious about the media-stoked race/sex division as a deliberately designed distraction from who is counting the votes (Bushite corporations) and how (with "trade secret" code). Will they steal it from Obama? Will they instead shave his mandate down, to weaken his administration? And what kind of Congress will they design for him, with the awesome, SECRET power that they hold to determine election outcomes all over the country?

We should be talking about THIS--not about divisions that are meaningless when we are all being massively robbed, oppressed and used as cannon fodder and slave labor.

[KoKo]

32. Agree with what you say....and about those "Voting Machines"

...what's saddest to me as that Dems don't take it seriously that Chimpy/Cheney could "pull an event" and the MainstreamCorporateMedia could spend all their time on either an Iraq Strike or something else and when folks go to polling places the "DRE Machines" that are in key election states all over the Country will suddenly turn votes to McCain...and with all the "sudden attention" on "Exit Polls" showing this are that about Hillary/Barack that DU'ers and MSM now accept as truth...that THE PEOPLE forget that EXIT POLLS favored both Kerry and Gore!

What's "behind the curtain...or keeps getting shoved "behind the curtain" is what is the MOST IMPORTANT. Maybe Dems now know how to RIG the machines and that's why they won't talk about it....but wouldn't that be pretty creepy if "our own" would do the dirty deed the Repugs got away with in '02/04? Most Dems would be happy with that as long as it favors us...but what would that mean that our DEMS never did any legislation about it. :shrug:

We Dems can't seem to get anyone to focus on those "backroom issues" with all the infighting going on.

[Peace Patriot]

34. Our party leadership's mind-boggling silence about the riggable voting machines

was really the thing that woke me up about the new Holy Roman Empire. Although I think that the Democratic Party's leadership is more complicated than the Puke 'leadership--much harder to sort out motives, and good guys from bad guys--there is no question any more in my mind that the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--which most of the Democrats voted for--was the moment at which the Democratic Party leadership joined the fascist coup that began with the theft of the 2000 election, or, at least, it is the most blatant act of treason which they, variously, helped engineer, enthusiastically supported, spinelessly agreed to, ignorantly agreed to, or understood for what it was but agreed to remain silent for reasons unknown (possibly lack of power to do anything about it). I believe the Dems have been subjected to spying, blackmail and threats. That's part of it. It was, after all, the Anthrax Congress that voted for the "Help America Vote Act"--in the same month (October 2002) as the Iraq War Resolution. To what extent the Dems were operating out of fear or collusion is just very hard to know. The thing that has so disturbed me, however, is their CONTINUED silence on a vote counting system that is egregiously non-transparent--run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Say they were afraid in 2002. What about now? Well, now they're shoving the corporate fallback position at us: The touchscreens (no paper trail voting) were outrageous; so now they're pushing the optiscans which have a paper ballot, but nobody counts it. (--ballots scanned into a machine ALSO run on "trade secret" code; many states do a ZERO handcount of these ballots, and even the best states do only 1%, totally inadequate in a "trade secret" system).

HOW CAN THEY SUPPORT THIS?! It is INSUPPORTABLE--non-transparent, anti-democratic, fascist. But now even the best of them have the problem of being BEHOLDEN to Diebold & brethren for their OWN elections. Even the best of them can be ousted by the Bushite CEOs who control the machines--EASILY ousted (one inside hacker, a couple of minutes--that's all it takes, and millions of votes can be flipped without detection). Touchscreens and optiscans have another thing in common--they both involve paying BILLIONS of our tax dollars to rightwing Bushite corporations, for the simple act of counting votes, something little old grayhaired ladies used to do perfectly well, as their civic and patriotic duty. These billions of dollars have wrought putrid corruption throughout the system, in every way--from the lavish lobbying for contracts, to the infusion of the corporate "culture of secrecy" into every aspect of our elections, and exclusion of the public.

In summary, I think that our Democratic Party leadership--or some cabal within it--AGREED to shove the Iraq War down the throats of the American people by means of a fraudulent vote counting system, which they fast-tracked all over the country with $3.9 billion in funding, during the 2002 to 2004 period. 56% of the American people opposed the Iraq War at the beginning (Feb. '03, NYT poll; other polls 54-55%), now grown to a whopping, epochal 70% anti-war majority. Most of us didn't notice that stat--56%--back then. (It was black-holed in the 'news.') But our political establishment noticed it, and knew it would only grow. So they made provision for thwarting the will of the majority in 2004, and again in 2006 (fake Democratic Congress that repeatedly re-funded the war, and refused to impeach the war criminals). And now?

We don't know. We can't know. The riggable system is mostly still in place--slightly improved with a paper trail in SOME states (one that nobody actually counts), but still basically out of our control, and in the control of Bushite corporations. The only thing that actually gives us good information about the voting in our own primaries is the caucuses, because they are NOT COUNTED BY DIEBOLD & BRETHREN. That's one of my main reasons for supporting Obama--there is evidence that he is, in fact, the peoples' choice. (The other reason is his supporters--their great citizen activism is THE essential ingredient needed for reform.) But there are no caucuses--no avenue for expression of the will of the people outside of the corporations' control--in November.

Things have changed, though. The insurgent Obama campaign has altered the landscape. So have courageous, dauntless election reformers all over the country. People are much more aware. People are in a much more revolutionary mood. Likely the fascists won't steal it from Obama--they don't want to see their voting machines dumped into 'Boston Harbor'--but they may instead greatly shave his mandate--and possibly give him another "Blue Dog" Congress--so that he can't do much of anything on our behalf. The global corporate predators and war profiteers have lots of additional ways they can cripple an Obama administration. And they can afford to sit out four years of greatly hampered (or lame) reform, then come back with something even worse than Bush/Cheney and Diebold it into office in 2012.

We are VERY vulnerable to such scenarios until we restore vote counting that everyone can see and understand.

[KoKo]

35. Yes..and you zero in...on a huge part of the problem...here..HAVA Act...Dem Driven...

Our party leadership's mind-boggling silence about the riggable voting machines
was really the thing that woke me up about the new Holy Roman Empire. Although I think that the Democratic Party's leadership is more complicated than the Puke 'leadership--much harder to sort out motives, and good guys from bad guys--there is no question any more in my mind that the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--which most of the Democrats voted for--was the moment at which the Democratic Party leadership joined the fascist coup that began with the theft of the 2000 election, or, at least, it is the most blatant act of treason which they, variously, helped engineer, enthusiastically supported, spinelessly agreed to, ignorantly agreed to, or understood for what it was but agreed to remain silent for reasons unknown (possibly lack of power to do anything about it). I believe the Dems have been subjected to spying, blackmail and threats. That's part of it. It was, after all, the Anthrax Congress that voted for the "Help America Vote Act"--in the same month (October 2002) as the Iraq War Resolution. To what extent the Dems were operating out of fear or collusion is just very hard to know. The thing that has so disturbed me, however, is their CONTINUED silence on a vote counting system that is egregiously non-transparent--run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Say they were afraid in 2002. What about now? Well, now they're shoving the corporate fallback position at us: The touchscreens (no paper trail voting) were outrageous; so now they're pushing the optiscans which have a paper ballot, but nobody counts it. (--ballots scanned into a machine ALSO run on "trade secret" code; many states do a ZERO handcount of these ballots, and even the best states do only 1%, totally inadequate in a "trade secret" system).

[tranche]

33. Fantastic post. Thank you.

[Mme. Defarge]

23. I was the only woman

at the otherwise all male rally of 75,000 in Waterfront Park on Sunday. Lots of folks in drag, though.

[Adelante]

26. You always make me laugh

You are really funny, Mme. :D

[Mme. Defarge]

29. Merci bien, mon brave!

I'm delighted to have a little attention on the unparalleled DU.

[Thrill]

30. Smart Folk out there