Give Women Some Credit, Please

I must have missed the memo stating that the only woman acceptable to all other women voters as Obama's VP nominee is Hillary.

I can understand the tendency in the traditional media to treat women as a monolithic and mindless voting bloc given Big Media's blatant chauvinism and the play that women's support of Hillary got in the primaries. But us DFH bloggers should be smarter than that.

I've also said I think it would backfire for Obama to choose a woman other than Hillary Clinton for a running mate. If he wants his VP choice to help boost his support among women, he should pick the woman who received more than 17 million votes for president in the primaries.

The polling is showing that Obama is doing quite well among women without Hillary on the ticket. To think he'll suffer in the women's vote if he picks a woman other than Hillary is a pretty weak, and rather dull, argument.

Would he lose support among Latinos if he picks a Latino other than Bill Richardson? I seriously doubt it. I also seriously doubt any knowledgeable person would actually try to make such an argument.

Making this argument about Hillary only plays into the media's hand that there is some sort of fight to be had between the Clinton and Obama camps on this issue. The media wants a fight to spice things up. IMHO, I doubt either Obama or Clinton will let it come to that.

Finally, what I find fascinating, and very hopeful for our democracy, is that there are several great woman candidates for the VP (in addition to the fact that there was a very good choice for POTUS) - Clinton, Sebelius, Napolitano, McCaskill, etc.

I find it absurd that women would abandon Obama in droves because he put any woman on the ticket.