HOLLISTER
There may be a female front-runner for the democratic ticket, but many San Benito County women say its the issues – not any candidate’s single trait – that will affect their vote.
Although many people have yet to make their decisions of who will get their vote for the February primary election, the Free Lance spoke to several women who said they were watching the race carefully and felt very opinionated about what the turnout should be.
Assemblywoman Ana Caballero, who has come out in support of Hillary Clinton, said although it’s exciting to have a female as a front-runner in the election, she believes many women support Clinton not because of her gender but because of her political beliefs.
“The fact that (Clinton) is now evaluated on the basis of the roots of her political opinion is very exciting,” Caballero said.
She said Clinton’s run for the presidency has been “historic.” When Caballero first got into politics people would come up with excuses not to support a woman candidate.
“What we’ve seen over the last number of years is that women have started to play a larger role in being candidates and women have started to respond to that and look at the women candidates as more viable than sometimes men give them credit for,” Caballero said, adding that all of this had built up “to the extent that now we have a woman presidential candidate who is actually a front-runner.”
Chairwoman of the San Benito County Democratic Central Committee, Jeanie Wallace, said although her favorite candidate was Dennis Kucinich, she felt as though he was not the most electable candidate and was, therefore, still deciding who to vote for in February.
“I have been leaning toward Hillary Clinton,” Wallace said. “Not actually because she is a woman – although I do have friends who are active in politics and supportive of her because she is a woman – but because of her knowledge and the ease with which she discusses international politics. I think as a country, we would be very well off with her.”
Wallace said health care, the environment and national security were the most important political issues for her.
Similar issues were cited by several women as important to the election.
Hollister resident Kate Mayhorn said that although she has been following the primaries closely, she has yet to make her decision between voting for Barrack Obama and Clinton.
She said she saw a woman’s right to choose as the No.1 issue affecting her vote and the war in Iraq as the No. 2 issue.
“The right to choose is very important to me because it’s about freedom, and the war in Iraq is everyone’s issue,” Mayhorn said. “I’m going to vote on the issues and some kind of change.”
While Leslie Schwabacher said she was not comfortable revealing which candidate she would select at this point, she was willing to share the most important issues that would lead to her eventual decision.
Schwabacher said the war, immigration and the environment stood out to her as the most important issues shaping the election.
It’s the issues that will affect her vote, Schwabacher said, not any single characteristics of the candidates.
“I certainly wouldn’t select a candidate because they are the same gender I am,” she said.
Still, some women said Clinton’s gender would have a slight impact on their vote.
Helen McKnight, who stood outside Hollister’s Nob Hill Tuesday, said the fact that Clinton was a woman played a role in her desire to see the former first lady in office, but only a small one.
“It’s who she is. I think she puts herself across very well,” McKnight said, adding: “We need a change.”
Mother and daughter Bonnie and Heather Sanchez said they believed as female voters, they would be looking at the election and the candidates differently than men.
“Men would look at everything differently,” Bonnie Sanchez said. “They might just not vote for (Hillary Clinton) because they think a man is more stable.”
But Heather Sanchez said it would also be a mistake to vote for Clinton exclusively because of gender.
“I think people might just vote for her because she is a woman,” she said. “They should look at other things besides that.”
Ge
