But, despite these shortcomings, Hillary showed that a woman could draw the votes of downscale, often sexist, white men. In the her late primary victories in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indian, West Virginia, and Kentucky, Hillary won, not only by securing the votes of women of all ages, but by getting the backing of high school educated white men, formerly the toughest nut for a woman candidate to crack. Of course, she was helped along by the racism of many of these voters, catalyzed by the ravings of Reverend Wright. But the fact remains that she won these votes over a male opponent, something women candidates were not supposed to be able to do.
And, in the process, Hillary shattered a number of other myths that pundits had once cited to show that women couldn’t win. She raised a prodigious amount of money, a sharp contrast to the enforced parsimony which had afflicted so many female candidates in the past. She was never seriously challenged for not knowing her substance on key issues. Her demonstrably high intelligence and familiarity with the facts made it clear that she was substantively qualified to be president, a far cry from the “airhead” label that had frequently been affixed to women running for office. And she allayed fears that a woman could not be an effective commander-in-chief. Almost all the polls showed that more voters trusted her than Obama on issues of defense, national security, and terrorism.
Of course her campaign demonstrated pitfalls for future female candidates to avoid. Voters were quicker to draw negative conclusions about Hillary’s personality than they likely would have been had she been male. Concerns that she was “cold” or “unemotional” or “robotic” surfaced early in the polling, while candidates like Mitt Romney, who, arguabley, could have been subject to similar criticism, were not.
But most important, Hillary demonstrated the power of women voters to elect a female candidate. Her top heavy margins among upscale women and her strong performance among their downscale sisters, showed that women can get the female vote and use it as a platform from which to win.
After all, if we discount the February primaries and caucuses in which Hillary was caught flat-footed and out of money (because she assumed Obama would be knocked out on Super Tuesday), the New York Senator clearly outdrew Obama and would have captured the nomination easily.
The lesson is clear: Being a woman is not a handicap in running for president. It is, rather, a priceless asset. It is not, however, enough by itself to assure victory.