Female self-esteem and the Hillary Clinton vote

Of all the ways the women's vote has been dissected -- married, single, older, younger, highly educated, high-school educated -- there may be one factor dividing women that has been overlooked.

Today in the Washington Post, Anne Kornblut quotes a 31-year-old seventh-grade teacher from Des Moines named Wendy Daniel who says she is thinking about supporting Barack Obama in the caucuses. In the general election, she said, she might support Rudy Giuliani, if he was the Republican nominee.

"But if Hillary gets up there, I won't vote for her," Ms. Daniel told the Washington Post. "I don't like her 'stand-by-your-man kind of girl who rides on her husband's coattails just to become president' thing. Maybe if she would have gotten a divorce and done everything for herself I would have thought about it."

Now, that's interesting.

When Hillary Clinton was on her book tour promoting her autobiography, "Living History," her book-signing events attracted long lines of women who told reporters that they thought very highly of Mrs. Clinton. Many of the women cited Hillary Clinton's intelligence as the reason they admired her so much.

Consider this: Whether a woman admires Hillary Clinton may have something to do with whether that woman was cheated on, and what that woman decided to do about it.

Let's write a character. A woman, age unimportant, who has known for years that her husband was cheating on her but chose to stay in the marriage. She suffers from terribly low self-esteem, both because her husband lost interest in her and because she doesn't have the desire or the courage to give up the married life, even if it is bitter, and live as a single woman. She fears that she is weak, stupid and untalented.

Enter Hillary Clinton. Here is a woman who is widely regarded as strong, intelligent and accomplished. And she made the same choice!!

The self-esteem of our character rises sharply every time Hillary Clinton is publicly humiliated by her husband and stays in the marriage anyway.

That might be what's behind those public opinion polls that showed Hillary Clinton's popularity at its zenith when the Monica Lewinsky scandal was in the headlines.

But what about women like Wendy Daniel? She sounds like the kind of independent person who makes our character feel so inadequate. "Maybe if she would have gotten a divorce and done everything for herself I would have thought about it," Ms. Daniel said of voting for Hillary. Wendy Daniel sounds like a woman who won't let anyone walk on her. And she's not voting for Hillary.

I don't think there are any poll numbers on how many voting-age women in America have good self-esteem. I doubt if pollsters can get truthful answers to questions about infidelity. But if the women's vote splits in mystifying and unexpected ways, self-esteem might turn out to be the missing link.



Copyright 2007

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