Will they really vote for McCain?

Less than a week after Senator Clinton's classy concession speech, many of her supporters are still keenly experiencing the pain of her loss. And a lot of ink has been spilled lately debating whether or not those voters are going to hit the Democratic party where it really hurts come November - in the voting booth. So what are the chances that vast swaths of Clinton supporters might actually pull the lever for McCain on Election Day? Unless Obama makes some big strides to win these women back, I'd say the chances are pretty good.

Here's what Obama needs to do. First, he needs to acknowledge that a vote for him over McCain is not the result of some form of latent racism on the part of these - mostly older, white - women. Just as black women who chose to vote for Obama weren't 'betraying their gender', white women who choose to vote for McCain are not revealing their inner Klan member. They are not saying no to race; they're saying yes to gender.

But McCain is a man. How is a vote for him a vote for gender? Such a question brings us to Obama's second responsibility: making an effort to understand just how much the media's gender bias during the campaign dredged up some seriously nasty memories for many Clinton voters. Many of Clinton's supporters, after all, were women over 50 - women who wanted options that their mother's didn't have and who fought hard to get them.

I'm not suggesting that the gender discrimination these women faced is in any way more destructive than the racial discrimination that has been a part of this nation's fabric since before it was a nation. As was pointed out to me recently, it's easy for middle-class white women to think so, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. What I am saying is that this country continues to fight a conscious battle with racism while sexism has been largely ignored. That Obama could be so forthright in addressing race in this country while blithely ignoring the constant barbs of sexism directed at Clinton - especially while billing himself as the candidate of 'change' - was more than many Clinton supporters could bear.

Third, Obama needs to acknowledge that his presumptive nominee status is far from a mandate. By my calculations (I've addressed my methodology in previous posts), the final tally of the popular vote left Obama ahead by 44,669 votes - a number that represents just a shade more than 1/10th of one percent of the total vote. Despite the insurmountable delegate lead and the rock star sized rallies, the number of Clinton supporters are almost equal to the number of Obama supporters in this country. They may be less vocal, they may be older, but they exist in vast quantities. And it's not enough that Obama simply assume they will vote for him out of party loyalty just as gender loyalty wasn't enough of a reason for women to vote for Clinton. Obama needs to make the effort to seek out these voters and earn their support.

Fourth, if Obama doesn't want to bring Clinton on as his VP, he needs to come up with a DAMN good reason. Whether or not she would be the right choice for VP is another question all together. The point is that, had their situations been reversed, Clinton would have faced charges of racism had she not chosen him as her VP. The fact that he now has the option to disregard her with no question of sexism has not gone unnoticed. His VP choice should be his own, but if he picks someone other than her then he is obligated to get her on board before the public announcement.