by Seth Colter Walls
Before Hillary Clinton suspended her presidential campaign, the chattering classes were doing what they do best: speculating, specifically about her 18 million voters. Once the New York Democrat bowed out, would her fiercest female supporters "get in line" and support Barack Obama? This question, and others like it, were breathlessly repeated -- as though the simple act of repetition could will a conflict, and a great story, into being.
Barely one month after Clinton's exit from the race, however, the power of the women's vote to stir up trouble for Democrats has become a decidedly less certain affair. While Salon's Rebecca Traister has become an invaluable source for anyone who wants to understand the mixed feelings that still persist among some Clinton supporters, Barack Obama has opened up a double-digit lead over John McCain among women (a trend that started the very week after Clinton brought her campaign to a close). That advantage is sticking, at least according to a new Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday, which showed Obama with a 14-point lead over McCain among female voters.
But even if the process of healing is well underway in the Democratic Party at large, there is less clarity about the status of the "unity project" when it comes to the smaller circle of high-dollar Democratic donors -- many of whom originally backed Clinton. Now, as John McCain begins posting his best-ever financial numbers while the Obama campaign appears to be conceding that small, internet donations can't power them all the way to November 4, the absence of some key "Hillraisers" from the current Obama fundraising effort has become conspicuous. Even a few such holdouts, should they stay on the sidelines for the duration of the election, could add up to a loss of millions of dollars for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (which is a bit cash-poor, itself).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/15/obamas-multi-million-doll_n_112792.html
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