Dana Goldstein at the Daily Beast is bummed, along with her fellow feminists from Massachusetts who put their weight behind Martha Coakley early on in the primary, only to be disappointed during the general election as Scott Brown moved ahead in the polls with the support of the Tea Party movement and other voters fed up with the Obamacare mess. While they still support her effort and are making calls on her behalf, feminist groups in Massachusetts are scratching their heads today, trying to figure out why they didn't see this coming.
Even as they man the phone banks, the women’s activist groups have been abandoned by their usually-supportive Bay State sisters. “It’s a shock,” says Christina Knowles, director of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization for Women. Writes Goldstein:
What’s even more shocking is how little enthusiasm Coakley’s campaign seems to have generated among the women of Massachusetts. According to several recent polls, female voters, who tend to be more liberal, are barely more likely than male voters to favor Coakley over Brown; one poll shows Coakley behind by four points among women, another has the candidates tied for the female vote. One outlier poll, conducted for liberal blog the Daily Kos, reports Coakley enjoys 13 percent more female support than Brown does. But strategists would expect the gender gap to be much larger in a typical Massachusetts election, with far more women than men supporting the Democratic candidate. When Ted Kennedy ran for reelection the final time, in 2006, 72 percent of women supported his bid.
Who has a woman problem now?
Hat tip: Hot Air
