Palin's Flop Shows Gender Doesn't Sway Women Voters

This election showed a female candidate won’t automatically draw women’s votes if most women disagree with her on the issues, Ellen Goodman writes in the Boston Globe: “It’s not the gender … but the agenda.” With women traditionally putting economic issues—and more governmental control—atop their list, the female vote has long been Democratic.  Sarah Palin really didn't have a chance of upending that trend.

Palin herself explained the Republican ticket’s defeat thus: “You know, we got that ‘R’ by our name.” And indeed, Goodman writes, “the other women's story of 2008 is that women voters and women officeholders are increasingly Democratic. That ‘R’ makes it hard to envision a door that a moose-hunting, pro-life, pit bull of a hockey mom can plow through.” (More female voters stories.)