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[SolidSnakex]

That isn't about her gender. But that also isn't the only factor at play here. The vast majority of people cite their general mistrust and dislike of her, as the reason they voted against her or opted not to vote at all. They aren't citing the fact she didn't speak to their demographic.

She's going to win the popular vote overall. Which means that more people were willing to vote for a woman to be president than a man. Her problem is that she simply couldn't connect with voters in the right states. And part of that is because she refused to even talk to them. To get to your point about how voters didn't trust her. If voters don't trust you then wouldn't it be a good idea to start talking directly to them about not only what you plan to do for them, but why they should trust you? Instead her messaging was constantly "Trump said this about women. Trump said this about minorities. Trump said this about war.". It was rarely about her and almost always about why Trump is such a terrible person. People knew Trump was terrible. His likability rating was even lower than hers. So, she didn't need to keep beating them over the head with it. She needed to start talking to them about her and her plans.

About talking directly to voters, several times Trump and Hannity would hold town hall meetings where Trump had a chance to talk to voters. There wasn't anything at all stopping Hillary from doing the exact same thing with another network. Any network would've jumped at the chance to host events like that. Instead when she was off doing fundraisers where her audience was ultra rich celebrities and business people.

you're my new favorite person.

Agree with all of that. Clinton didn't have the ability or desire to reach out to everyone she needed to. That's not a gender issue, that's a clinton issue. She had NEVER been to wisconsin, at all.

That's a massive fuckup in the campaign, and you could see this same strategy in her 08 primary election- park yourself in swing states and high turnout blue areas, don't worry about anywhere else.

Obama crushed her by using data and ground game to hit low population caucus states and areas democrats don't usually bother to compete.

Her not going to Wisconsin is also a key point since she lost it by less than 30k votes. It's not like she got blown out by some insurmountable number. That small number has to make anyone that sees it ask themselves "How different would things have been had she talked to people there?". Just show people that you care about them! Obama visited Wisconsin six different times in his 2012 election and ended up wrecking Romney.

Hillary and her campaign instead wanted to try to run up the score. They convinced themselves that Georgia, Arizona and Texas were actually in play this year. She even took the time to visit Arizona. All of that instead of making sure that the states that were critical to her path to victory were locked down. Many Democrats laughed at Trump because he was campaigning in states that they thought were for sure going to blue. But he wasn't doing that because he was running up the score, he was doing it because that was the only chance he had of winning. His strategy was to pick up enough states to win while Hillary was being cocky.

 

[WesternHeretic]

People keep saying that Michelle or Warren could win, but if either of these women tries to reach for the Presidency, you can bet public opinion will sway against them. For Michelle Obama, the focus would be on her complete lack of experience and people would characterize her as "riding her husband's coattails." Warren will similarly get criticized for a lack of experience.

Hillary was also well liked as First Lady and as a Senator.

I don't doubt that but I don't think it will matter if Michelle runs. I honesty believe if she does the turn out for voters between 18-29 will shatter whatever the record is now.

 

[Breads]

I don't think she lost because she is a woman.

I mean she did win the popular vote.

 

[Manmademan]

I don't doubt that but I don't think it will matter if Michelle runs. I honesty believe if she does the turn out for voters between 18-29 will shatter whatever the record is now.

If experience mattered we wouldn't have been looking at an Obama election in 08, or Trump presidency in '16.

Trump not only has no experience in government at all, his response to any and all policy questions was completely incoherent.

Michelle could absolutely win in 2020, but there is no way she even thinks about running. the woman is notorious for loathing Washington politics.

 

[Karkador]

Sexism probably did create a lot of openings for people to target attacks on Hillary Clinton in gendered ways that they wouldn't for a male candidate.

- Consider how often a political attack or talking point about Hillary Clinton focused on her being the wife of Bill Clinton. At best, she was portrayed merely as an accessory to Bill's presidential run. At worst, she was characterized directly through the lens of the sexual assault accusations against Bill. Name me a male candidate who has been dragged down this much by their spouse's activities. Not even Melania working in the US as an illegal immigrant, taking someone's job, gained much traction against Trump.

Even when the attack is about policy, it's something like Trump hammering the point about Bill singing NAFTA, or the problems of the world being Hillary's fault because she didn't single-handedly stop all the bad and misguided legislature her male peers (some of whom Trump associates with) fully backed and signed off on.

- Consider how women in high positions tend to receive higher scrutiny than male peers for the same criteria, or criteria that only applies to women. Any sign of weakness on Hillary, real or imagined, was amplified. She was characterized as exceptionally corrupt and inept, even when her political peers did similar things. People would not shut up about Hillary's health when she got sick like a normal person. There was that publicized letter where the guy disqualified her because women menstruate (and people go along with that).

- Count up how many times you personally remember Clinton been called "evil", "corrupt", "pantsuit", "witch". These are views that are amplified by a bias against women in power. Even the language against Trump ('demagogue', 'fascist') wasn't painted in such absolute moral and gendered terms. I heard these names even from left-leaning people, from Bernie supporters, NeoGAF posters, and people otherwise very likely to vote Democrat. Even people who are now lamenting her defeat were doing it. It wasn't until the DNC that some people finally started to consider her human - that's way too late.

- "Trump that bitch", "Hillary sucks, but not like Monica", "Such a nasty woman". Explain where this kind of stuff comes from, specifically only directed at female candidates. In other instances, female candidates have gotten their faces photoshopped in porn or a body in a bikini (and this is not meant to be flattering). The only comparison I can think of here is photo comparisons between Bush's face and a chimp (regrettable, even though I hated Bush), or bumper stickers such as "Dont Re-Nig in 2012" (which is just plain racist and bad).

Before you argue "only right-leaning, fringe people do this", it was done to Sarah Palin by left-leaners, too, even on TV programs, all along the same lines of reducing a candidate for a top office to a bimbo or a hag. It also slides a lot easier than the racist comments, despite also being demeaning simply because of identity. Regardless of which direction these types of messages are pointed at, there is a sexist undercurrent in our attitudes towards women that creates this.


So look, I support the idea that the DNC fucked up, the campaign was misguided, and that you can't expect"better than bad" to mean "good" in the eyes of the people. There is a lot to learn about what went wrong, but we have to acknowledge that even if the US is ready for a woman president, it's still too easy to sway people's opinions about her with sexist, gendered rhetoric.

 

[gogosox82]

I think the focus on Clinton is a bit off because I think there are a bunch of factors that lead to her loss but in general women representation in Congress is quite low and I'd agree that part of the reason for that is sexism.

 

[Omega Kirby]

She has a shady past and focused a lot on trumps negatives, instead of what change she would bring. Of course many people wouldn't like her. Any other women would have had a better chance than hillary at winning

She won the popular vote, but that doesn't get you in the white house.

 

[The Artisan]

Eh, Michelle Obama if she wanted to run (I don't blame her for not) would spank Clinton. Everything about the Obama's just oozes of class. Not perfection, but class and a damn good attitude to try and take care of America. Hillary was too much I want to take care of myself, by getting this job.

It's not so much an issue of Clinton being a woman, she just wasn't the right woman. For 2020 the Dems need a much better female candidate. It is time for America to elect a female president, it just sucks the effort for 2016 ended up with Clinton.

it is time for a woman to be president I agree but clearly it ain't Clinton

I want Oprah, but Michelle would do great too if she wanted it

 

[Karkador]

She has a shady past and focused a lot on trumps negatives, instead of what change she would bring. Of course many people wouldn't like her. Any other women would have had a better chance than hillary at winning

She won the popular vote, but that doesn't get you in the white house.

Trump similarly has a shady past, and focused a lot on his opponent's negatives. Furthermore, the changes Trump proposed were outlandishly stupid and insane compared to Clinton's. Yet, this stuff hurt Clinton more than Trump, despite Clinton weighing in a lot more qualified and transparent. When do we recognize the double standard?

 

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

She won the popular vote. If those votes were distributed differently she would be President. They weren't, and it wasn't because of sexism.

 

[funkystudent]

She ran a bad campaign that took the middle america vote for granted and paid for it.

It was a huge miscalculation and has nothing to do with bring a women.

 

[autoduelist]

Put Warren in that race and watch her go hard as a mother fucker.

Warren would have likely won this election. Sanders too. Many people did not want to vote for a Clinton, or the status quo. HRC was the absolute worst possible candidate, and she still was favored to win. She did not lose because she was a woman. Trump did not win because he was racist, but because he spoke directly to the dispossessed, the rust belt unemployed, against the corporate bosses [like Ford], against unemployment and raw deals. The left only heard the wild/awful things Trump said, and never paid attention to his actual message. Well, Michael Moore heard that message, and it's clear he understood it. Still, Trump would have lost to most anyone, because many didn't necessarily want to vote Trump, but they certainly didn't want more of the same/HRC.

We'll never know if Warren would have won, but I'm fairly confident she would have. I realize many here think this election was about racism and sexism, but those blinders are preventing people from seeing this election was about unemployment, the economy, the banks, too. This idea that people didn't want to vote for a women is absolutely missing the point of this election.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I think if you look at Hillary Clinton's history with politics, her strained relationship with Bill and his masculinity, her pressure to change all throughout her career and the amount of shit flung at her all the years as a clear result of sexism, the argument starts to build. I don't think a significant swath of people voted with the belief that Clinton should not win because she is a woman, but a significant swath of people voted with the belief that Clinton should not win because she is Hillary Clinton, an image built up of opportunism, deceit, and incompetence in part due to the fact that she's a woman.

I've long been opposed to the idea that there are that many out there that don't want to see a female president. The nature of Trump's win only reinforces that. But if you look further back, the seeds of a sexist campaign were following her a long time before 2016.

 

[StormKing]

Trump similarly has a shady past, and focused a lot on his opponent's negatives. Furthermore, the changes Trump proposed were outlandishly stupid and insane compared to Clinton's. Yet, this stuff hurt Clinton more than Trump, despite Clinton weighing in a lot more qualified and transparent. When do we recognize the double standard?

Trump wasn't a politician. That's why it didn't stick.

Hillary was against gay marriage until she was for it.
Hillary was for gun rights until she was against it.
Hillary voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.
Hillary has a political record that shows that she is untrustworthy.

Trump does not have a political record of any kind.

 

[Karkador]

Trump wasn't a politician. That's why it didn't stick.

Hillary was against gay marriage until she was for it.
Hillary was for gun rights until she was against it.
Hillary voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.
Hillary has a political record that shows that she is untrustworthy.

Trump does not have a political record of any kind.

Obama went through a similar change of heart about gay marriage, which IIRC came up during the 2012 reelection run. I think we can understand "evolving positions" on issues that gain social visibility and traction over time (whether it's political opportunism, or somebody seeing a problem in a new light), but where Obama is offered the benefit of the doubt by his base, Hillary is "untrustworthy"?

And again, isn't it weird that you are siding with somebody with no record and no experience (besides the snippets of horribleness we learn from his business dealings) vs. someone who at least has an improving record? If it's not that Trump is getting the benefit of the doubt by being a man, is he rather exploiting the amplified doubt because Hillary is a woman?

 

[StormKing]

The fact is that Trump did not win this election. Hilary lost it.

She had more money than Trump.
She had more party support than Trump.
She had more media support than Trump.
She had a better favorability rating than Trump.

Even with the email scandal (her own fault), she still should have won.

She lost because she made clear strategic errors. She failed to campaign in the Rust Belt and that's what cost her the election. How can her not visiting Wisconsin once after losing it to Bernie in the primaries possibly be excused?

Yes, some people in America do not like because she's a woman. But despite that she got the popular vote. Despite that she almost won.

Attributing Hillary's loss to sexism is partly absolving her of blame. It's saying that it's not Hillary's fault. America just wasn't ready for a female president.

No, I reject that. If Hillary Clinton had not screwed up her campaign, then she would be President elect Clinton right now and the first female president.

 

[Oddduck]

I feel like these posts come in like clockwork. Like the discussion of gender and politics is literally impossible without some guy denying that gender has nothing to do with it. "It's about ethics in politics" etc.

Gender is a part of it.

But another problem is Hillary was married to Bill Clinton, a man who was accused of using his presidency (and power) to take advantage of multiple women. Whenever anyone tried to accuse Trump of sexual assault -- or when that tape of Trump and Billy Bush leaked out -- the Trump team just turned the attention back to Bill Clinton.

"Here's all of Bill's accusers sitting in the audience at the final debate! Hillary Clinton is married to a sexual predator like Bill Cosby's wife. Hillary defends a sexual predator over women because it will help her political career."

That was literally Trump's strategy every time a controversy popped up. And guess what? It worked. Over half of white women voted for Trump according to CNN.

If someone like Elizabeth Warren had been running, Trump wouldn't have been able to use Bill Clinton to shield himself every time someone accused him of sexual assault.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

I don't think she lost because she is a woman.

I don't think it was the only reason. It was a reason.

Especially because it colored perceptions of her over her entire career.

 

[DudeWithNoName]

Michelle would win if she ran. I know she hates Washington politics, but I hope she runs anyhow because shes needed.

 

[Keri]

Trump wasn't a politician. That's why it didn't stick.

Hillary was against gay marriage until she was for it.
Hillary was for gun rights until she was against it.
Hillary voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.
Hillary has a political record that shows that she is untrustworthy.

Trump does not have a political record of any kind.

I think a good question to ask yourself is, do you think the outcome would have been the same, if the gender of the candidates were swapped? Do you think a female "Donald Trump" candidate still would have won over a male "Hillary Clinton" candidate? Or would more voters in middle America have found themselves suddenly valuing experience more? I think a female "Donald Trump" loses for sure, for being untrustworthy and unqualified.

 

[WaterAstro]

I don't think she lost because she is a woman.

It's not the main reason, but sexism definitely influences a number of voters.

 

[kinggroin]

Oh, let's not kid ourselves, just like with Obama being black turned out to be a deal breaker for some, I'm sure Hilary being a woman was one for many voters as well.

It wasn't why she lost the election though. No way.

But yes, I agree that it is harder for a woman to win than a man.

 

[Max_Po]

It's not the main reason, but sexism definitely influences a number of voters.

okaaaay

 

[TaterTots]

I believe Clinton's loss didn't have much to do with her gender. A lot of people want a female president, but she was the wrong horse to bet on.

 

[chillybright]

America, like many other western world countries, is ready for a female leader, but clearly not Hillary.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

I don't think she lost because she is a woman.

it didn't help. I mean, do you really think this isn't an issue? I even have female relatives that questioned a woman running the country, and these aren't fervent Trump supporters or anything like that. They just don't think a woman has the temperament, would be too "emotional". You can find woman tearing down their own gender all the time, now imagine what a great deal of men are thinking.

 

[StormKing]

Obama went through a similar change of heart about gay marriage, which IIRC came up during the 2012 reelection run. I think we can understand "evolving positions" on issues that gain social visibility and traction over time (whether it's political opportunism, or somebody seeing a problem in a new light), but where Obama is offered the benefit of the doubt by his base, Hillary is "untrustworthy"?

And again, isn't it weird that you are siding with somebody with no record and no experience (besides the snippets of horribleness we learn from his business dealings) vs. someone who at least has an improving record?

Obama didn't vote for the Iraq War. Obama was a first term senator out of Chicago. He was not yet entrenched in the Washington bureaucracy the way Hillary Clinton was. Hillary was the establishment candidate in 2008 while Obama was the outsider. That's why Obama was given the benefit of the doubt.

A bad record is far worse than no record and Clinton had a very bad record. Support of the Iraq War is an automatic non-starter for a lot of people. Support of NAFTA destroyed her support in the Rust Belt and I suspect was a non-starter for people in the Midwest. Clinton showed that she was beholden to both the military industrial complex as well as Wall Street when she supported.

Again Hillary Clinton is a politician. Donald Trump is not. That's why people cared far more than Hillary's scandals than they did about Trump's. We expect business people to screw us. After all they only want to make profit, they don't care about us. However, politicians are supposed to be for the people. Politicians are supposed to help us not screw us. That's why Clinton was held to a much higher standard than Trump is.

 

[Karkador]

America, like many other western world countries, is ready for a female leader, but clearly not Hillary.

I believe America is ready, but any woman candidate has to compete on a field where it's acceptable and easy to tear her down with sexist rhetoric.

 

[Adam_Vania]

I think we can understand "evolving positions" on issues that gain social visibility and traction over time (whether it's political opportunism, or somebody seeing a problem in a new light), but where Obama is offered the benefit of the doubt by his base, Hillary is "untrustworthy"?

this happened in March of 2016. she basically threw the AIDS community, which was ignored and demonized during Reagan's presidency, under the bus:

"It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about H.I.V./AIDS back in the 1980s,” Mrs. Clinton, who was attending Mrs. Reagan’s funeral in Simi Valley, Calif., told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan – in particular, Mrs. Reagan – we started a national conversation, when before nobody would talk about it. Nobody wanted anything to do with it."

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/fir...lauds-reagans-on-aids-a-backlash-erupts/?_r=0

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

this happened in March of 2016. she basically threw the AIDS community, which was ignored and demonized during Reagan's presidency, under the bus:

She apologized for those remarks, and the gay community were overwhelmingly supporting her throughout the entire campaign.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

The Hillary bashing here feels so wrong. I feel like the debates where Hillary showed that she was a knowledgeable and respectful candidate didn't happen.

It definitely feels to me that Hillary's flaws are blown out of proportion.

Her flaws are definitely blown out of proportion, but fact is majority of Americans do hate her for one reason or another. Even on GAF, many liberals voting for her include a "but". I do agree with that poster about Hillary the candidate vs Hillary the President.

Question is, does a Joe Biden win if he goes with a similar message had he ran? Namely a continuation of Obama's policies when changing the status quo is seemingly what people want.

Of course we'll never know since he never ran. Maybe his team would have been more savvy to avoid the flaws of Hillary's campaign.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

Her flaws are definitely blown out of proportion, but fact is majority of Americans do hate her for one reason or another. Even on GAF, many liberals voting for her include a "but". I do agree with that poster about Hillary the candidate vs Hillary the President.

Question is, does a Joe Biden win if he goes with a similar message had he ran? Namely a continuation of Obama's policies when changing the status quo is seemingly what people want.

Of course we'll never know since he never ran. Maybe his team would have been more savvy to avoid the flaws of Hillary's campaign.

Joe Biden would've had a much easier time. You don't get "Trump that bitch" chants for a Joe Biden.

 

[El Topo]

America, like many other western world countries, is ready for a female leader, but clearly not Hillary.

America has less women (percentagewise) in House/Senate than pretty much all other Western world countries. The US is very far behind in that regard.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

You so god damn right. People should go back and watch her last rally in philly. I remember watching The Obama's speeches and then watching Hillary. All I could think about was man....can we have Obama back?

DNC as well.

 

[BlueBadger]

I don't think her gender was the only reason she lost the election. To echo the other posts, there were definitely other problems.. Like the way they chose to run the campaign, the fact that they never set foot in Wisconsin, made little effort to win over Michigan, her email stuff etc.. However, I do think gender did play a role in this loss as well overall. Her loss wasn't solely because of gender, but I think it definitely factored into play along with all of the other things. It's unfortunate, though :/

As a Canadian, we haven't seen a female PM in quite a while now.. And I think she was voted out pretty quickly IIRC

Edit: Saw a previous post saying she only lasted around 4 months. I remember it being around that long.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

DNC as well.

I mean, yeah, Hillary is not a great speech maker, or a great campaigner, and she knows that, but she would've been a good president. (and you wouldn't have had to worry about the supreme court being a goddamn disaster)

 

[BlueBadger]

You so god damn right. People should go back and watch her last rally in philly. I remember watching The Obama's speeches and then watching Hillary. All I could think about was man....can we have Obama back?

There are always trade-offs I think. I found her speech skills to definitely be below Obama's, but I found her debate skills to be above his.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

Oh, let's not kid ourselves, just like with Obama being black turned out to be a deal breaker for some, I'm sure Hilary being a woman was one for many voters as well.

It wasn't why she lost the election though. No way.

But yes, I agree that it is harder for a woman to win than a man.

Not harder than a black man named Barack Obama. Period.

 

[Karkador]

Obama didn't vote for the Iraq War. Obama was a first term senator out of Chicago. He was not yet entrenched in the Washington bureaucracy the way Hillary Clinton was. Hillary was the establishment candidate in 2008 while Obama was the outsider. That's why Obama was given the benefit of the doubt.

I'm talking about the benefit of the doubt in 2011 and onward, when the marriage issue started to come into political focus, after the economy started to rebound a bit. I remember quite well, the "evolving position" quote, and the people aligned with him didn't give it such a distrusting look. I think that wasn't the case for Hillary, and lowered a lot of voter confidence and enthusiasm with people on her side.

A bad record is far worse than no record and Clinton had a very bad record. Support of the Iraq War is an automatic non-starter for a lot of people. Support of NAFTA destroyed her support in the Rust Belt and I suspect was a non-starter for people in the Midwest. Clinton showed that she was beholden to both the military industrial complex as well as Wall Street when she supported.

"A bad record" doesn't quite describe that she's improving on her positions, though. And no record gives me no confidence at all; not sure how you can say that's "better", but I would wager that a gender flip on that situation would not bode well for the no-record, no-experience female candidate (and her opponent would capitalize on that).

Again Hillary Clinton is a politician. Donald Trump is not. That's why people cared far more than Hillary's scandals than they did about Trump's. We expect business people to screw us. After all they only want to make profit, they don't care about us. However, politicians are supposed to be for the people. Politicians are supposed to help us not screw us. That's why Clinton was held to a much higher standard than Trump is.

If this is commonly understood and accepted, why would anybody vote for Trump?

 

[hemo memo]

I don't think she lost because she is a woman.

This.

 

[StormKing]

I think a good question to ask yourself is, do you think the outcome would have been the same, if the gender of the candidates were swapped? Do you think a female "Donald Trump" candidate still would have won over a male "Hillary Clinton" candidate? Or would more voters in middle America have found themselves suddenly valuing experience more? I think a female "Donald Trump" loses for sure, for being untrustworthy and unqualified.

Clinton wouldn't even be the nominee if the genders were swapped. Wasn't her whole campaign based on being the first female president? How can she do that if she's male. She used her sex as the reason why she was not part of the establishment.

If Donald Trump was female, I'm not sure that he would be able to win over the Republicans. Republicans have chosen a white male as their nominee every time. It would certainly be harder for him. If Trump was the only anti establishment candidate, I do think he would still win as a female though but I'm not positive.

I do think female Donald Trump would defeat male Hillary Clinton though. Male Hillary Clinton would be a Mitt Romney that voted for the Iraq war.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

I mean, yeah, Hillary is not a great speech maker, or a great campaigner, and she knows that, but she would've been a good president. (and you wouldn't have had to worry about the supreme court being a goddamn disaster)

I agree.

Also, along with being more charismatic, Trump also outworked her with his constant rallies.

 

[Keri]

I do think female Donald Trump would defeat male Hillary Clinton though. Male Hillary Clinton would be a Mitt Romney that voted for the Iraq war.

This is why we disagree. I can't see a world where an unexperienced female candidate wins the presidency. I think that a man with the same background as Hillary and who made the same mistakes in his campaign as Hillary, would overwhelmingly be our President, if pitted against a Donald Trump candidate.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

I agree.

Also, along with being more charismatic, Trump also outworked her with his constant rallies.

He needed that ego boosts.

 

[Conan-san]

The problem wasn't the gender of what was being marketed, it was who was being marketed (and let's not mince words, she was no saint), what she was bringing to the table (Little to nothing, if not less) and how she was marketed (Calling anyone who even so much as thought of voting for Trump a deplorable and basically selling them on him on the ticket of "If I'm going to be called an asteroid I might as well smash into some planets.")

 

[StormKing]

I'm talking about the benefit of the doubt in 2011 and onward, when the marriage issue started to come into political focus, after the economy started to rebound a bit. I remember quite well, the "evolving position" quote, and the people aligned with him didn't give it such a distrusting look. I think that wasn't the case for Hillary, and lowered a lot of voter confidence and enthusiasm with people on her side.



"A bad record" doesn't quite describe that she's improving on her positions, though. And no record gives me no confidence at all; not sure how you can say that's "better", but I would wager that a gender flip on that situation would not bode well for the no-record, no-experience female candidate (and her opponent would capitalize on that).



If this is commonly understood and accepted, why would anybody vote for Trump?

Well Obama did a lot for gay rights during his presidency and he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment act. That's why I think people gave him the benefit of the doubt.

A vote once cast cannot be taken back. Hillary voted for the Iraq War. It doesn't matter if she later said it was a mistake. She supported it at the time and she failed when it mattered.

No record is far better than a bad record. No record suggests this candidate might be good or bad for me. A bad record suggests that this candidate will definitely be bad for me. That's why Obama beat Clinton in 2008. He had no record, while Hillary had a bad record.

Because Hillary definitely won't. While Trump probably won't. The rationale went, if Hillary is in office, she definitely won't help us, she's been in Washington so long and has only supported things that hurt us. Trump probably won't help us but he might so I'll vote for him.

 

[Suikoguy]

It's threads like this that remind me this is a male dominated forum.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

Not harder than a black man named Barack Obama. Period.

Wrong, He's still a man(with Joe Biden right by his side), and black folks(YOUNG and old) fucking love him. Now compare that to the support(or lack thereof) of white women for Hillary. She lost that demographic decisively... TO DONALD TRUMP. I mean, how is that even possible?

It's harder for a woman, and it shouldn't even be up for debate.

 

[Karkador]

This is why we disagree. I can't see a world where an unexperienced female candidate wins the presidency. I think that a man with the same background as Hillary and who made the same mistakes in his campaign as Hillary, would overwhelmingly be our President, if pitted against a Donald Trump candidate.

Said another way, I think a woman with Trump's qualities wouldn't be tolerated. Consider the vitriol that gets flung at comparably quiet personalities like Amy Schumer.

A woman-Trump wouldn't make it past the stigma that she's terrible at business because of all her bankruptcies, and utterly evil for not paying contractors, and suing her way out of everything. Can you imagine? She'd be the most evil person in America.

 

[Boney]

I'd love to know the % of women elected in office at a local level when they do run.

Would clear the picture if it's more of the parties not allowing them to run or the voters not choosing them.

Anybody got any numbers for this? My gut tells me that women when nominated get elected 60% or so. But that's straight out of my ass on the conception of women candidates have to be really talented to make up to male peers