Post Editorial "Gender" Gap

The always consistent Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post editorial pages proves her inanity once again with a column so contradictory and so inaccurate that the Post should have considered running a correction.

 

Marcus’ musings are about the impact Hillary Clinton’s sex has had on the presidential race. The piece is entitled “The Force of Gender,” and Marcus sprinkles the term “gender” throughout. Alas, perhaps Marcus or the Post generally can’t bring themselves to print the word “sex,” but that is the more accurate word for what Marcus is referring to. “Gender” of course really means having masculine or feminine traits. Sex is the biological term for whether you are male or female. Marcus’ whole point is about Clinton’s sex, not whether she is masculine or feminine enough.

 

So right off the bat, Marcus is off to a poor start.

 

Then she writes, “If anything, the playing field has been demographically tilted in Clinton's favor. Women account for nearly six in 10 Democratic primary voters.” Remarkably, Marcus displays no self-awareness that seven sentences later – 7! – she then writes “the gender gap in Clinton's support is persistent -- and striking” owing to a 22 point deficit among male voters.

 

So in MarcusWorld, the Democratic primary demographics have been “tilted in Clinton’s favor” even though she suffers from a 22 gap among men. And Marcus mimics the rest of the national media in their inability to reference the blatant demographic effect race is having on the election. Obama is killing Clinton among black voters, routinely winning this demographic subgroup by 85-15 or even 90-10. So much for a demographic tilt in her favor.

 

Indeed, the numbers are so stark among male and black voters that they are the sole reasons Clinton is trailing Obama. It’s basic math, though Marcus does her best to play grand pundit, “Clinton's loss, if it comes to that, will have more to do with squandered and mismanaged resources; a shapeless, shifting message; a loose-lipped spouse; and arrogant strategists who dismissed the threat from Barack Obama and assumed the past would predict the future.”

 

Uh, no it won’t. It will have to do with the 20 point gap among men and the 65 point gap among blacks. Not even the most persuasive arguments are going to sway black voters who can support the first legitimate black presidential candidate in history.

 

And finally, after expending 600 words pooh-poohing the notion of a gender gap, Marcus abruptly pivots to warn of the “ominous” problem for future female candidates: “whether the country, particularly the male half, can comfortably fit a woman into its mental picture of a president.” But with so little time to explore this last minute thought, Marcus curtly ends the piece with this bizarre non-conclusion to her thesis: “Gender isn't the most restricting force in American life. It remains a force to be reckoned with.”

 

Say what? If you’re like me, you are more confused and more misinformed after reading this drivel than before. That it was published in nation’s preeminent political papers is astonishing.