Discarded: What role will gender play in Hillary Clinton's presidential bid?

This issue moved to another topic and can now be found here

Okay.  We should be able to find evidence on this.  Good revision.

THERE!  I like.

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Totally agree about moving to 2008 Elections.

I think I still like the positive effect/ negative effect/ no effect formulation better, but I'm flexible.

Yeah, I've been keeping an eye out for stuff about this since I first proposed it (and the fact that I'd already seen some was part of why I proposed it), I don't think I made a note of all of it but its definitely out there.

i like where jenna's going with this.  there is also this possibility:

Will Hillary's gender affect her presidential bid?

Will Barack Obama's race affect his presidential bid?

As Brian just pointed out while standing next to me:  This may be more of a blogger issue bc it will be hard to find public figure evidence  on it.  I tend to think though that we'll find media folks weighing in on these issues. I'm all for jenna's revision or mine. 

Let's move this under 2008 elections.  We need to work on the wording though.

Really?  I don't see it that way, in the sense that I can imagine it getting "yes" or "no" responses.

How about:

What will effect will Hillary Clinton's gender have on her chances to win the 2008 presidential election?
-  Positive effect
-  Negative effect
-  No effect

If that works, we could do it with the other ones too ("What effect will Barack Obama's race have..." etc.)

this is extremely framed and a bit loaded, "insurmountable barrier"??

I like this revision.

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*crickets chirp*



This seems to be a new direction, might be a better way to go with it, I dunno.

I'll go ahead and edit this one since I still like the latest formulation best (but would have to go in 2008 Elections...)

I like Jenna's suggestion.  The question, asked right now anyway, is referencing Hilary so why don't we just put it all on the table?

No, "Will Hillary Clinton's gender be an insurmountable barrier to winning the 2008 presidential election?"

"Will her gender be an insurmountable barrier to winning the presidency for Hillary Clinton?"

i still don't like it.  the problem with asking it this way is that the only way you can answer yes is if you believe Hillary can win.  There are no other women in the running so even though we are asking a more abstract or philosophical question, we're really asking a concrete one:  Can HIllary be elected president?

So I'm opposed to this revision, (which originally I thought might work) not only on a personal basis but also on an editorial one.  i'm not discarding it but it needs more work.

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:-)

The wording could definitely be more precise.  I come from a background of creating questions that will generate discussion, and vagueness can be a virtue in that context.  This series ("Is America ready for...?") contained some of my first proposals here, and I now have a better sense of what's necessary to not just get the bloggers talking but generate some stands.

How's this:

"Can a woman be elected President of the United States in 2008?"
-  Yes
-  No

That's really what I had in mind (and what esperanto gets at in his post).  It just means, is the American electorate at a place where a candidate's qualifications can actually trump his or her race or gender?  Or are race (black) and gender (female) still deal-breakers?

It's not, like, "Will America be in SO much trouble if a woman becomes president?"

I'll admit that I don't really know what this question means either, but there are certainly public figure opinions on it. As much as I hate it, I feel like it's a pretty prominent debate and we probably ought to cover it. The scary thing is, now that the presidential campaign is heating up, and a black man and a woman are in the running, it's becoming clear that a lot of people really AREN'T ready. I think I'm coming around on this series, or "flip-flopping," as some would call it.

Esperanto cracks me up:

I think we used to have an issue like this proposed, but it made Jacki really angry, so we discarded it.

That pretty much sums up my feeling on this series of issues.  I know they are issues, whether manufactured ones or not - but i see problems asking them in this way.  for instance, what does "ready" even mean?  I'm not even sure America is "ready" for anything. 

I don't seem to be the only one shying away  from these issues so if no one minds, i'd like to discard the whole series.  bold move, i know.

Judith Warner asks this very question (I asked it first! )

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/index.php

Her answer is at least ambiguous.

It would probably behoove Clinton’s strategists to find out why nearly half of our country doesn’t believe we’re ready for a female chief executive. We wouldn’t, after all, want ignoring their concerns to come to be known in 2009 as the “Hillary effect.”

Further comments here.

Same reservations as for black. I've been trying, for example, to find some people who are against U.S. aid to Darfur. There are lots of pf's who get a D or and F from the Darfur campaign - but you can't find anyone who actually comes out and says it. And it's dangerous to suggest that someone "stands" for an issue (particularly as potentially divisive as this one) unless they actually say it. So evidence will be hard to come by.

I think we used to have an issue like this proposed, but it made Jacki really angry, so we discarded it.

I did a quick search and didn't find anything, apologies if this has already been proposed.

Seems timely with Hillary recently officially throwing her hat in the ring.

(Also did one with "black" instead of female, re: Obama.)

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