US News: Many Women Don't Feel Obligated to Vote for Clinton

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/04/18/many-women-dont-feel-obligated-to-vote-for-clinton.html

Obama is trying to appeal to female voters in his effort to win the Pennsylvania primary
By Nikki Schwab
Posted April 18, 2008

When Michelle Obama appeared Tuesday night on The Colbert Report in Philadelphia, encountering faux pundit Stephen Colbert and hoping to give her husband the "Colbert Bump" before next Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, the comedian asked her an important question—who she was supporting for president.


A crowd of Obama supporters applaud at an event in Malvern, PA.
(Jeffrey MacMillan for USN&WR)

After a chuckle from the audience and a definitive answer—"Barack Obama"— from Michelle Obama, Colbert pointed out that pollsters kept telling him that all the women were going to Hillary Clinton.

"That's been a mistake that the polls have made," Obama said. "There are many women like myself who are independent, strong, who care about family values, who know Barack is special, that he has something unique to offer the country and that his perspective is really going to change the lives of working women."

With that statement, Obama unearthed an interesting point about female primary voters. Women as a whole have not consistently voted for Hillary Clinton throughout the Democratic primary season, and a recent poll reinforces the point that many women don't feel that in sharing a gender with the first formidable female candidate, they have to.

The poll, conducted as part of Lifetime television's "Every Woman Counts" campaign, asked whether women felt obligated to vote for Clinton because she was a woman. Twenty-two percent said yes, and out of that 22 percent, 17 percent said it was just a "small part" of why they would vote for her while 5 percent felt a stronger pull.

FULL story at link.

[GetTheRightVote]

1. it not obama, it would have to be her if I voted which I probably would not

Obama is special, to special not to vote for, he has mine.