But I can believe that the same criticism would be leveled at a man who brought up guns to pander, as well. “Oh, so now he thinks he’s John Wayne? Come on, get serious folks!” Because Clinton never was a big gun-person before, and only brought it up to try to differentiate herself from Obama.

Then, cleverly linking her inextricably in the public consciousness with her husband, [Obama] added: “I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes.”

Apparently, this is supposed to be sexist. However, it completely neglects the context of the lead-up to the debate, in which Obama was attacked in the media by Bill Clinton so often and so strongly that questions were being asked about the former president’s role in Sen. Clinton’s campaign.

Stephen is correct to say that Obama was seeking an advantage in linking the two. He’s wrong in implying that this was in any way sexist. The question Obama was raising was not whether Hillary was letting a man take over her campaign, but whether she was letting a former president take over the campaign.

(Please, make it end soon …)

Not quite true.

What Obama was referiing to in that quote about Hillary being tied up with Walmart, was a day or two before the Hillary camp said, Hillary was working for blacks while Obama was sitting on his front porch getting stoned.

The quote was from former BET head honcho, Jonson, but Hillary was right next to him when he said it.

Clinton, btw, has the support of the largest demographic in the country: women, who make up 52%-54% of the voters nationally and in most states. Just as a percentage of the black population supports Obama because he’s black, a percentage of the women support Clinton for the like rationale. Only there’s way more women than blacks, so the raw numbers suggest she picks up a lot more votes on that basis than Obama does.

While I agree there’s a ton of sexism existting - and many Obama supporters have attacked it, particularly where it’s emanated from the MSM - it’s likely she gains more votes than she loses because she’s a woman. It’s not convenient to mention that, however.

Bottom line: if one is losing the pledged delegate count, one has to find a way to overcome that in superdelegate support. So anyone in a race this close would likely advance every conceivable argument to use as persuasion. So most of what I’ve heard is not stuff I’d call Hillary-centric. A lot of the charges that she’s ‘calculating and manipulative’ are leveled at statements I’d expect any male candidate to make if they were in her shoes.

In my opinion, it’s legitimate to complain that there’s a double standard at work in such instances. However, because on rare occasions, she has taken the hyperbole to extremes, sometimes the complaints about her have merit, which helps feed that double standard. Additionally, because there is some Clinton-fatigue in the party, as well as the anti-royalist sentiment against more than 20 years of the Bush-Clinton White House, it’s really impossible to gauge how much of the sentiment is rooted in those things versus sexism.

Sure, sexism exists. But has it really been the deciding factor in this campaign? I’ve yet to see the compelling case made, because of all those factors. It’s understandable that some of those who’ve personally experienced the sting of sexism will feel certain that’s the deciding factor. But in the polling done about voting for a woman for president, the percentage is small enough that I’d guess most of the knee-jerk sexists wouldn’t be voting for any Democratic nominee.

So the inexact science of measuring sexism’s impact on this primary season isn’t likely to result in any hard conclusions except for the one the polls have already demonstrated. Women candidates face a 12% disadvantage while a black man has a 6% disadvantage. So yeah, that means a woman would enter a general election campaign against a black man with a net disadvantage of 6%. But how much of that 6% can be found in the Democratic party? That’s another great unknown.

We already can see that a specific black man (Obama) can exceed what others (Jackson or Sharpton) could accomplish. And just as Jackson and Sharpton also drew opposition for being divisive or polarizing, that too remains a known element about Clinton.

So a woman campaigning as a unifier quite likely could outperform what Hillary’s achieved. Within the progressive blogosphere, for just one example, her refusal to apologize for the AUMF vote likely cost her far more support than her gender.

It is sad but unfortunately true that although the same characteristics can be applied to the male, they seem never to define the male as the sum total of what he is. It’s unjust at the same time it exists.

Hillary was not qualified to take on health-care reform. She did anyway and we continue to live with the disastrous consequences. I hope that should another woman run for the office of president she will not be burdened with the task of first undoing all the damage to womanhood that Hillary has engendered.

This, I think, is the flip-side of Clinton Exceptionalism, in which she can do no wrong and is being picked on in an extraordinary way. Asking her to leave the race! How dare they! That’s NEVER happened before! (Except of course, for all the times it has, including when the Bill Clinton campaign did it to his opponents in 92.)

Perhaps ‘92 was just “routine political sniping” because it was on behalf of a Clinton, whereas the same thing this year is ghastly, unprecedented behavior, because, well, um … that’s where they keep losing me. I think the answer is supposed to be “Obama is evil”. Though it might be, “Everybody’s picking on Hillary because they’re sexist.”

Still, Ferraro was right in one way, about the Annie Oakley comment. No one would have compared a man to John Wayne. They would have compared him to Elmer Fudd.