I'm about to stick my neck out...

[figmo]

...and make a prediction re: the Presidential election.

I have been saying for months that if McCain were to select a female VP candidate, he'd win the election.

I stand by that statement.

This has nothing to do with anyone's political preferences, including mine. I am making this prediction as a journalist.

My logic: Barack Obama's VP, Joe Biden, is male, thus alienating the folks who voted for Hillary Clinton because they wanted a woman President. Many of Hillary Clinton's supporters felt alienated by Obama's choice.

Many of these Hillary Clinton supporters are so desperate to see the "glass ceiling" shattered they'd vote for anything female on a ticket, no matter what her viewpoints were. Now that they have their female on a ticket, many of these former Clinton supporters will vote for the Republican slate, mostly to have a woman only "a heartbeat away" from the oldest Presidential candidate ever, exclusively because of her gender even though Sarah Palin's viewpoints are very different from Hillary Clinton's.

Comments

[r-wolfcastle.livejournal.com]

1) Hillary got 18 million primary votes.

2) Obama is already set up to lose (barely) because of the uneven distribution of blue voters when compared with the distribution of red voters. He'll carry states like New York and California by large margins, but those extra votes won't win him any extra electoral votes, and the combination of all the smaller states' electoral votes will defeat him.

It doesn't take too large of a percentage of those 18 million votes to sway things in McCain's favor. And they don't even have to vote for McCain -- they are organizing campaigns to write in Hillary's name, or they could just stay home and not vote. The Hillary supporters who feel they have been scorned and are hell-bent on punishing the Democratic party no matter what the cost to the nation, and even in direct defiance of their preferred candidate's explicit wishes, may or may not be a large group, but they are certainly vocal and deeply deeply bitter and angry.

I do not think this bodes well.

While I fear just this scenario

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I won't consider it over until it is over. I had a suspicion during the primaries that it was largely Republicans pushing the "Hilary is inevitable" line because they saw her as easy to beat. It's true that some people think so little that they will vote for the woman because she is a woman (any woman) but I'm hoping there are at least as many stupid Republicans who no way will vote for a woman even as #2, or bought into McCain==Mavarick fiction and don't like it.

Re: While I fear just this scenario

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I think McBane's VP selection is roughly even in positives and negatives. Positive: female, may attract female voters too dumb to notice or believe the candidate's anti-feminist views. Views in line with the extreme right may appease far right voters who think McBane is some sort of left-wing hippie. Negative: Female, may alienate extreme right voters who think she should stay at home and take care of her children & a woman could never be president. Far-right anti-feminist venom will alienate women who are intellegent & voted for Hillary,

I'm in my wait-and-see mode, and thinking positive thoughts. Sometimes realities of being in office shock candidates into correcting their views. For example, conservative Supreme Court appointees sometimes cast votes that don't seem conservative at all. I expect to be surprised, and that is my prediction. It's a very safe prediction.

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

i wonder if this is really true, or whether some of these angry callers to talk shows are really republicans.