I'm also not supporting Mrs. Clinton because her stances (and non-stances) on issues. I do however think it's fair to recognize that her treatment in the media and some of her perception by voters is tainted by sexism.

And her gender had nothing to do with it. She was down to earth, plain speaking, and came across as genuine.

Hillary Clinton has none of those characteristics.

To claim that people don't like Hillary because of her gender is just a cover-up for the fact that she is an ethically challenged phony, a terrible campaigner, and is very willing to play dirty to get her way.

for the very same reasons.

You have nailed it precisely.

I don't.

IMO, it has nothing to do with Clinton's gender, as you rightly point out, Warren wouldn't have problems like this.

When the first word associated with you is "liar" and your campaign publicly says it is going to "plan more spontaneity" and you feign not knowing what it means to wipe a server, you have a credibility issue, not a gender issue.

That's a pile of dissembling.

Recently Clinton and her good bud turn out to be coordinating activities of his pac for her.

Scott Walker and his staff were investigated for years over suspicions of what average voters see as very similar practices.

That sort of thing doesn't do her trustworthiness rating any good at all.

I wrote a post awhile back on the types of women and their treatment.

I think Warren and H are two different types of women and the public reacts to it. On paper they seem the same. Older, forceful, opinionated, fighters, white, mothers, wives, Democrats, from the eastern time zone and north of the Mason Dixon line.

Devoted to their causes.


And yet...Warren is likable to many people across the board. Sure she has her detractors, but it usually is against her politics only.

H is like a lightening rod, could be because she is a weather vane, but she gets attacked for her politics and her being.

I am a woman. I find that people like me when they meet me. I have an open face and I like most people. I find them fascinating. But I went to a couple of gatherings with a good friend of mine. She has a huge heart and cares deeply for people. They all remembered my name and never hers. Why? It is baffling to me. I am quite likable---which is probably making 10 percent of this board choke on their danish right now---but I am very nice in public. (This kind of site taps into my unexpressed passions..)

Maybe one of the differences is that Warren seems ernest and H seems ambitious. There is a lot of bias against women with ambition for self in this society.

Interesting, because I find I have a visceral reaction to H. It hits me deep to think of her as President, like the reaction thinking that W would get the nod.
shrug.

Not a chance. But then Senator Warren is honest, uncompromised, and truthful.

Some of the "scandals" are utter bullshit, mainly the whole Benghazi thing. But the email business demonstrates quite vividly why she's so terrible. Denials, obfuscations, hoping it will go away, and so on.

And while there certainly is a certain sexism sometimes (but not always) in the opposition to her, it's really no worse than the racism directed against Obama. Not that either is ever acceptable.

If she actually wins the nomination, the right wing will come out against her with such a fury that it will take your breath away. People who otherwise wouldn't bother to vote will make sure they vote against her.

If, by some bizarre twist of fate, Carly Fiorina is also nominated, and we have two women competing directly for the Presidency, things would get extremely interesting. I'm sure that the right wing and all those who think no woman ever belongs in higher office will find ways to explain why Ms. Fiorina is an exception, while continuing to vilify Hillary. Plus, of course, Fiorina has run a business or two (into the ground, but who's looking that closely?) and so of course they'll consider her far better qualified for the highest office.

Face it. No candidate ever receives fair treatment from all. Just to bring up two other names: O'Malley is being roundly ignored by all, and Bernie is slammed for being a socialist, not a Democrat, and even here people think he wouldn't have a clue how to work with Congress if elected, as if he hasn't been himself in Congress for nearly twenty-five years.

And so on and so forth.

I am not about to vote for Hillary just because she's a woman.

but would actually LOVE to have the first woman President or Vice-President to have the R after her name. The movie "Game Change" is a scary case in point. When Palin shows up on the radar as a possible candidate, and then when she is actually McCain's VP choice, all the operatives can talk about is what "game changer" this is. There is zero attempt to see if she has a higher IQ than a hamster, of if she can actually learn anything meaningful.

An interesting insight into the Republican mindset regarding a female President can be found in the novel Eighteen Acres by Nicolle Wallace, who was a Republican operative and Palin minder during the '08 campaign. The novel involves the first woman President, who naturally is a Republican. That alone qualifies it as bad science fiction. Or a rather dumb alternate history, but I digress. She has a philandering husband, and when his unfaithfulness becomes public knowledge, her forgiving him manages to make her much more popular, to the point where she wins re-election by a landslide. At the end, her press secretary is set to become the Secretary of State in Madame President's second term, which is mind-boggling stupid. Except that even people who ought to be too smart to be Republicans, eventually become quite stupid so long as they remain R.

Anyway, I'm honestly concerned that Fiorina winds up as the Republican nominee, because she would be nearly impossible to defeat. For all the wrong reasons, but her possible candidacy has me vastly more worried than any of the others.

When all I knew was that she was a woman was "Aw, f*ck." I thought this could cost us.

Then I got to know her and my next reaction was "Oh,no "

Fiorina could do it. She fired lots of people for the stock holders, and you know how they love that.

Hillary's problems:

The TPP
Her support of Fracking
Her support of Prisons for Profits
Her support of the MIC
Her support of WARS, WARS, WARS and More WARS
Her support of the Death Penalty
Her support of Corporate Tax Loopholes
Her support of Wall St. Over Main St.
Her support of Citizens United (she needlessly utilized it, so she supports it)
Her support for Big Corporations
Her connection to Vilsack and Monsanto
She doesn't support FREE TUITION for all students at State Universities - Why the hell not? Because to pay for it, Bernie will tax her BFF'S on Wall St.

Being a woman is the least of her problems. Being a Progressive, I prefer to vote for a candidate who has a Progressive Agenda and works for WE THE PEOPLE, not THOSE CORPORATIONS.

Her stances and non-stances on virtually every issue of any importance disqualify her from the presidency. And no one who wants the office as desperately as she does should ever come near it.

If she were a man, I don't think there would be half as much outright hatred towards her like we see on DU all the time for example. Men are "tactical" whereas Hillary is "calculating" and so on.

It reminds me of that study where students gave their instructors higher marks on online courses when they thought the instructor was a man, even though they never saw the instructor or heard their voice.

She's a corporatist, that's not sexism it's a fact.

I don't think that is necessarily overt sexism, just a meaningless term tossed around by people who don't like her personality.

She is very cozy with Wall Street and it doesn't take much searching to find that information out.

And, to those of us tired of Wall Street's revolving door into our government, it's not a bash. We truly want to end this practice and she's been guilty of it.

want the person voted most admired woman in the world for 15 years, you're going to have to pay more than you would for Dennis Kucinich.

must be nice to get rich from politics.

Bernie didn't and neither did Biden.

you!"

But because he's an extraordianarily, preternaturally gifted politician.

Hillary's people seem to think that merely having the name "Clinton" will confer on her the old Clinton magic, and when it doesn't, they imagine it's because "sexism".

To take one example. I have literally never seen a male candidate blamed for his spouses infidelity. To take another. I have nearly never seen a male candidate criticized for ambition. Both have happened to her.

Sexism is an objective fact; so is racism. Obama didn't have an inspiration problem.

that she is simply NOT a very inspiring person.

Being inspirational is a quality that is an inate ability, as well as a learned ability (skill).
Some are simply better at it than other regardless of how the quality or skill has been obtained.

Other factors mentioned in the threads above may play, but secondarily to the more simple explanation.

Peace

Voters are rejecting representatives of the establishment this election cycle. It's really that simple.

It has absolutely nothing to do with being a woman, eMail scandals, or anything beyond representing the establishment and being in their pocket.

America voted for CHANGE with Obama, but he really had no track record (they got us with the "community service&quot and so we were duped by yet another water carrier for the establishment.

So, we're going to try for CHANGE again, but this time we're going with a candidate that has a LLLOOOONNNGGG and well documented track record of advocating for the people.

That's really it in a nutshell for me anyway.

then listen to Bernie or Warren speak and you see why she is not "inspiring".

...that Hillary's problems with "authenticity" stem from biased expectations of females vs. males.

Yes she has had to deal with sexism, and yes she has been a champion for women's rights. Good for her on both scores. But her lack of authenticity is just that: a lack of authenticity. For example, she now tries to present herself as the champion of LGBT rights -- yet she is the one who talked about marriage being a "sacred bond between a man and a woman" as late as 2013. Of course there is the IWR vote, where she made an impassioned speech, but now she acknowledges that it was a mistake and claims she could not have known (but millions of us knew, and were vocal about it). As on so many other issues, her positions have "evolved".

I don't have a problem with people evolving. It happens to all of us. However, when a candidate repeatedly evolves on issues, and their evolution tracks with polling, it makes me go "Hmmm...". And when there is another candidate who has not had to evolve on the issues you care about, who has a consistent track record on those issues, well, I just can't help looking at that candidate as a better alternative.

We see someone who poll tests, who calculates, who triangulates in order to decide where she wants to stand on whatever issue is at hand.

She's not inspiring because she doesn't have solid convictions about pretty much anything significant, and she doesn't show any passion as well. Someone who inspires has to hold firm convictions and deliver a vision that speaks to the heart of what people are feeling. Hillary tries to please everyone, but manages to inspire none. She wants to fight for "women and children," so does every other person who runs for president and who is in politics, thats as generic and uncontroversial as you can get.

It has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her overt caution and unwillingness to take risks.

The only conviction she has - and has held for ages, I suspect - is that she should be President.

Yes, she is ridiculously qualified. Almost over qualified.
But the hesitance to tell us who she really is and why we should really vote for her - and make sure that those statements align with her record as a public servant - makes it appear that she doesn't want this for us; she wants it for herself.

JMHO. Flame away.

As Gertrude Stein said, "there's no there there." And you are absolutely correct about her sole core conviction. The sense of entitlement is overwhelming and appalling. She reminds me more of Richard Nixon every day - the decades-long obsession with winning the presidency, the willingness to say or do absolutely anything in furtherance of that goal, the complete lack of any moral center. It's an ego-driven trip based on a profound feeling of entitlement. Just like with Tricky Dick.

Anyone who wants the office that desperately should never, EVER have it.

It's only a cultural bias that pervades everything.

"One thing about which fish know exactly nothing, is water" Marshall McLuhan

Except that we do know quite a lot about it, don't we?

Yes, Sexism is a huge problem. Yes, Sexism has unfortunate consequences for women in positions of power and it causes difficulty in getting elected. Looking at the gender composition of congress is adequate to identify that.

But no, you cannot simply make the argument that the most stage managed candidate in this election cycle cannot be authentic because 'sexism.' That is an insult to every other woman that has been elected to public office. Elizabeth Warren has no trouble being authentic and speaking plainly and directly to the American people or her constituents.

The reason Hillary comes off as un-authentic is because her comments are intensely scripted to promise as little as possible, offend as little as possible, and stay as flexible as possible.

She basically needs to fire about 75% of her staff.

I'm not inspired by the idea of Hillary becoming the first woman president because I don't want to send this message to young girls:

Any girl can grow up to be President of the United States. All you have to do is find and marry a man who will be president first!

I feel completely different about Elizabeth Warren than I do about Hillary. I would be enthusiastically for a Warren campaign, and work for her, and donate to her. Hillary's campaign just makes me cringe from the phoniness. And yet, they're both women. Go figure.

Just another ambitious politician seeking power.

She's the status quo; part of the establishment that's bogged down DC for so long.

Same thing with Biden.

See, they can't attack Sanders on the issues, so they slander him personally, for his ethnicity, for his accent, for his hair, for his skin, for his age, for his penis.

But... they can't actually support clinton on her issues, either. So they project, and assume that everyone who doesn't want her to be president just hates her for her vagina, for her hair, for her clothing, for her accent(s), for her skin...

Obviously all this talk of "issues" is just to disguise the fact that a full blown cult has spring up around Bernie Sanders.... in the short space of a few months.

Hillary, on the other hand, is supported not because she's Hillary™ or @Hillary but because she, um, stands for stuff!

stuff like ...being Hillary™.

That should be ENOUGH FOR YOU!

they both oooze the same sense of entitlement that they are merely collecting their birthright rather than expressing any profound or even articulable vision for people to rally around.

She wants to be president because her sycophants have been telling her it's her destiny for the last twenty-five years. Just like Romney.

and folks know the real thing when they see it.

Right, Wrong or indifferent that is how things are really playing out with America right now.

Hillary is Lady MacBeth without the guilt. At least that is how I see her and so do others that I know.