The XX Factor: What women really think.

Change Is Good. Polls Are Caca.

1) Change is good: The single most unambiguous piece of information to come out of last night is that Democrats see the promise of change as way more important than the value of experience—52 percent to 23 percent said it was the No. 1 thing they were looking for in a candidate. And since in '08 shorthand Obama equals change and Clinton equals experience, this can only be good news for him; the candidate who wins the argument about what the election is over generally wins the election. (Only "generally'' may no longer apply, which leads us to our second lesson.)

2) Polls are caca, and all the rules have been suspended. Even more than has been generally acknowledged, this race is so fluid and voters so volatile that pollsters can't seem to keep up, and known patterns seem not to apply. The good in this is that it challenges some of our laziest assumptions and silliest stereotypes like ...

3) Conservatives are sheep who go bah, bah, bah all the way home. Not true, and I don't think it's so much that conservative talk radio has lost its influence as that it never had the authority to issue edicts in the first place; when Rush and Laura and Sean reflect conservative opinion, they do magnify it, but when they don't, voters seem to have no trouble dissenting.

4) Women across the ideological spectrum look great in red. Nah, scratch that one; Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama look good in anything. And on that positive note, one day down, 39 to go.

GOP Women Thought Huckabee Won the Night

Now this is interesting; I see where a focus group of Republican women has declared Mike Huckabee the winner of last night's debate. These undecided, right-leaning women thought Mitt Romney came off as phony, arrogant and "a snake''—and one woman who described herself as a strong Republican wondered if a guy that rich would really look out for the little guy. (Do you want to break it to her, or should I?) Others expressed discomfort with his Mormon faith and bridled at his lack of support for Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he suggested he would never have appointed to the Supreme Court.

John McCain also got a big thumbs-down from the group, which included 11 California women of various ages, races, and wings of the GOP: He's so snide, they said, as if that were a bad thing. But Huckabee they found caring, real, and in touch with their concerns. So much so that seven of the 11 declared him the winner, and four who'd been leaning toward other candidates decided to support him as a result. Maybe they liked how he patted Nancy Reagan's hand?

McCain: Take That, Laughing Boy

Republican Wallflowers

No gender gap, no respect. That's the story for Republican women voters in the primaries so far. Tonight, according to exit polls, they broke for John McCain 32 percent over 30 percent for Mitt Romney. Which means they voted along the same lines as GOP men more or less (35 percent McCain, 32 percent Romney). Ho-hum. As in Iowa and South Carolina and New Hampshire—if the lack of coverage in my last hour of searching is any measure—no one is much keeping track. Gender has mattered a great deal in the Democratic race, with women tilting between Hillary (New Hampshire and Nevada) and Obama (Iowa and South Carolina), and voting in larger numbers and by different margins than men. But they haven't been the key to any Republican victories. In Florida, tonight, they accounted for 44 percent of the vote in their party, compared to 60 percent among Democrats.

So the main interest in GOP women has been speculation about how many might vote for Hillary in a general election. (Mark Penn: as many as 24 percent. Republican response: no way. October poll: Eighty percent said definitely not, more than ruled out Obama or Edwards.) Given their political views, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they're up for Hillary to grab. On the other hand, if McCain or Romney or someone doesn't start tailoring his pitch to them and only them, they could get miffed. The virtue of a party without a gender gap is that it's not dodging the potholes of identity politics. The downside is that it's muddling along without thinking much about what its women want. Listening to Romney's and McCain's speeches tonight, I don't hear anyone wooing the ladies. Not even in a throwaway sentence or two.

Why is there no female angle to the Republican race? Are the security moms completely gone? Has the Hillary candidacy simply erased gender as an issue for Republicans because they don't have a first woman to support and history to make? What do Republican women want, anyway? They support the Iraq war in far greater numbers than their Democratic counterparts. But they're just as worried about the economy. Beyond that, and the obligatory pro-life nod, no one seems to ask them. Maybe the Republican candidate who went a-courting would find himself with his dance card more than full. When you've spent months as a wallflower, you're ready to dance with the guy who asks you.

That Hurts My Feelings!

Sunday was the Feast of the Epiphany, but the homilist hadn't had one while preparing his sermon—it happens, even to Jesuits—so I drifted back to the epiphanies of the previous evening's presidential debates while he struggled to connect the dots between Fra Angelico's Adoration of the Magi and children growing up now in the Darfur. (Sorry, Father, but isn't calling them "at risk'' sort of like calling Santa a not-altogether-unpleasant figure?) Or calling Mitt Romney a tad unprepared for the full-body thumpin' he got from John McCain on Saturday night? My politically incorrect husband thought Gov. Haircut could not have looked any more stunned if McCain had sneaked up and given him a wedgie in his special underwear.

It was John Edwards' night from where I was sitting—even Barack Obama was no Barack Obama—but the most intriguing moment came when Hillary Clinton convincingly mocked the notion that if some people found her unlikable, then she guessed she'd just go home and cry her poor little eyes out. As someone who would rather hide in her basement than go out and risk getting her tender baby feelings hurt, this got my attention: Clinton really seemed beyond caring, and though I've never been sure she was my brand of vodka, that is an accomplishment worth toasting.

Of all the reasons there aren't more women running for political office, fear of being disliked and rejected has got to be high on the list. Supposedly, the desire to please—and the dread of failing to do so—is drummed into us by the culture, but I have seen it more in my daughter than in her twin brother from the get-go. This year, in their first or second week at their vast new middle school, my son announced that he wanted to run for student government, an idea that his panicked sister tried to talk him out of: "But, you don't know anyone! You'll lose!'' (His response: And?)

On Election Day, I was a nervous wreck, and had chocolate-chip cookies at the ready in case he fell short and came home hurting. But when 3 o'clock rolled around at last, he ran in laughing and proud that he'd ... only narrowly lost? Wahoo, he said: He'd met a lot of kids, gotten a lot of good feedback on his Go Green platform, and figured he was well positioned for the next campaign. His sister and I were agog—as I was last night, watching one strong woman laugh at the news that she had not been named Miss Congeniality. And if that's what Hillary's time in the old boys' club taught her, then sister, I am finally all ears.

Mitt: Pander Better, Please

Forget the Evangelicals in '08. What About the Jews?

It seems like much longer than three years ago that Howard Dean was hailed as the great hope for Web political organizing. Now, Ron Paul has replaced him as the no-chance-in-hell candidate to best harness the misdirected money and idealism of the Internet masses. 

But apparently Dean’s feeling nostalgic for the Internet, because he recently talked about one thing sure to stir up bloggers: who gets to go to heaven. During a speech Sunday to Jewish leaders, according to the Politico, Dean said that “there are no bars to heaven for anybody.” (The article headline—“Dean says Jews can go to heaven”—is a little odd: It seems to suggest that Dean granted Jews access to heaven.) 

That assertion surely won’t sit well with conservative evangelical Christians who think that there actually is a bar to heaven, and a rather high one at that. But though the Democrats have apparently been trying to woo evangelical voters suspicious of potential GOP nominees Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, it’s not likely to happen. Could Dean instead be trying to stop the trend of Jewish Republicans? There have been periodic trend reports this year about Jews in ‘08, including some wondering if Jews might be more inclined to vote for Giuliani than they were to vote for Bush and how they might respond to Obama. Exit polling from the 2006 midterm elections found that young Jews (and Orthodox Jews) were more likely to vote for the GOP than their older counterparts. Is this actually something Dean and the Democrats need to worry about? Or was he just trying to please the audience in the crowd that day?