Sexism

Sen. Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Lois Romano of the Washington Post, addresses the sexism in this contest that many of us have complained about for months.

"It's been deeply offensive to millions of women," Clinton said. "I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways. But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press, and I regret that, because I think it's been really not worthy of the seriousness of the campaign and the historical nature of the two candidacies we have here."

"The manifestation of some of the sexism that has gone on in this campaign is somehow more respectable, or at least more accepted, and . . . there should be equal rejection of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head," she said. "It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists."

Grey, at Taylor Marsh, offers the following:

The sexism has been pervasive and blatant, though rarely taken seriously, a great miscalculation on the part of the Obama campaign. Should he become the nominee, there won't be enough good will left for him to even begin to repair the rift, and he should not operate under the illusion that women, as well as many of their male allies, will "get over it" and fall in line. The repeated, insistent calls for Sen. Clinton to abandon the race aren't helping and are, in fact, rankling her supporters:

"I'm real tired of the pundits telling me the race is over -- telling America what it should think," said Dorinda Perkins, 63, a lab technician. "I do not want her to quit."

"I love her because she's a helluva fighter. She's tenacious and I like that," said Pat Parker, a night-shift worker at Hardee's in Bowling Green. "She cares for everybody, for people like me. . . . I'll tell you, she's been treated pretty shabby."

I have said before, if Obama becomes the nominee he will have a lot of work to do in just trying to win over the base of the Democratic party -- women.