Women voters lining up behind Clinton again
Five days after Hillary Clinton finished a disappointing third in the Iowa primary, women voters were widely credited with boosting her to victory in New Hampshire.
When Barack Obama swamped Clinton in the Wisconsin primary, analysts made much of exit polls showing that he had made inroads into Clinton's support among women.
Now, Clinton has regained a measure of momentum with three primary victories Tuesday, and the exit polls indicate that she did very well with women voters in Ohio and with women, older voters and Hispanics in Texas.
Exit polls slice and dice primary results enough different ways to make your head spin. Women's votes draw special attention, though, because female support has been deemed crucial for Clinton's success moving forward and because a generational divide of sorts has emerged: Middle-aged and older women vote for the Park Ridge native in larger numbers and more consistently than younger women.
Maren Helsa, of Emily's List, which raises money for Democratic women candidates who back abortion rights, said differing life circumstances, including older women's worries about health care, explain the difference.
"One of the most economically vulnerable sectors of the electorate is older women," Helsa said. "What these older women do is look at the field and say, 'Who can start turning this around on day one?' "
For them, Helsa said, the answer is most often Clinton.
Younger women, she said, tend to feel less economically vulnerable.
Martha Burk, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations, said she sees generational differences, too, but offers a different take on the reason: denial.
Burk said young professional woman who found their academic performance judged entirely on merit in college don't want to acknowledge that the workplace wields different standards.
"They expect meritocracy to be true in the workplace as well," Burk said, "but in the workplace, many other things impact women, and sexism is one of them. When they're out of school only five or six years, that hasn't started to sink in, because it's not as blatant as it was 30 years ago. It takes women longer to realize what's going on."
As for deciding whether to vote for Clinton or Obama, women widely agree that gender is a factor -- but not necessarily the determining factor.
Katie Hill, 28, a Chicago attorney who grew up in the suburbs, said, "I'd certainly be delighted to see a woman elected president, but the notion that I should vote for a woman for the sake of having a woman president seems sort of anti-feminist to me."
Hill's main reason for backing Obama mirrors that of many of his other supporters, male and female. She sees in him the ability to inspire and lead.
"Hillary has talked a lot about him only giving good speeches," Hill said, "but I think there's value in being able to galvanize people who have been politically inactive and disenfranchised."
That attitude -- that gender alone does not a voting decision make -- is not unique to young women.
Irene Rozansky, co-founder of a crisis management service in Des Plaines, said she voted for Obama in the Illinois primary because she likes his potential to restore the U.S. reputation around the globe.
"I'm infuriated with how (Clinton has) been treated, but I wanted to make sure I did not vote based on that," said Rozansky, who said she is in Clinton's own "age demographic."
Jacqueline Bethea Cuyvers, Chicago-area leader of Ladies Launch, a group that supports women entrepreneurs, said she's gone "back and forth, back and forth" on trying to decide whether Clinton or Obama would be the better president.
"As a woman and as a woman business owner, we do tend to support other women's entrepreneurial efforts," said Cuyvers, 29. "But that would certainly not stop me from voting for a man, and it will really come down to the issues."