Froma Harrop sat in on the recent gathering of "high-powered Clinton supporters" who formed the new women's group - The New Agenda. You'll want to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:
[A] new Pew Research Center poll shows that 28 percent of her primary voters do not intend to vote for Obama, a number virtually unchanged from June. Of special concern are women, particularly older ones, whom in the past could be counted on to vote for whatever Democrat was running for president. Many remain scandalized by the sexist attacks on Clinton during the recent campaign. A stubborn 18 percent of Clinton's female voters vow to back McCain, according to a poll for Lifetime television networks. Another 6 percent plan to support neither major-party candidate. .
Thing is, it's no longer about Hillary for many of them. I sat in on a group of high-powered Clinton supporters gathering in New York last week to create a nonpartisan group called The New Agenda. There was little discussion of the current campaign. The New Agenda's agenda is to look out for women's political interests where the Democratic Party and old-line feminist organizations had failed. The attendees reserved special fury for the Democratic National Committee and its passivity before the misogynistic carnival. One of their specifics is getting MSNBC jester Chris Matthews fired -- and if he intends to run for the Senate from Pennsylvania, to end that idea.
DNC chairman Howard Dean has called Ruccia twice. "He was just waking up to the thought that women around the country were upset over the treatment of Hillary," she told me. Ruccia tends to doubt that putting Clinton's name to a roll-call vote will mollify many of the female holdouts. "The train left the station a long time ago," she said.
The New Agenda wants to become a women's-voice alternative for the National Organization for Women and NARAL, which they see as moribund and appendages of the Democratic leadership. Members note that when rapper Ludacris sang a pro-Obama ballad calling Hillary "an irrelevant b-," the president of NOW didn't get out of bed to complain.
For many of these women, whatever nice things Clinton says about Obama in Denver won't matter much. They have decided that they can live with McCain, and they're already inoculated against the crude anatomical references that left-wing bloggers will send their way. (There's not one they haven't heard.) Hillary can't do much to change their feelings -- even if she wanted to.
Primary Misogyny Sparks New Feminist Movement
Feminist Revenge: Women's Group to MSNBC - Fire Chris Matthews!
New Agenda Hillary Clinton Feminist Politics Gender Democratic Primary Chris Matthews Barack Obama News Media Misogyny
