"given that significant mobilization of new voters is a necessary condition to any realignment."

Is this true? Reagan didn't, did he? He just stole Dems, right?

Oh, and you have to win to realign.

"I am led to ask this question:"

Yes. Yes you are.

schaller:
"Is Hillary -- despite the notion that she takes the Democrats backwards and keeps the country mired in generational culture wars -- actually the Democrat most likely to engender (yes, pun intended) a realignment?"

brian williams rush limbaughs BFF at the first dem debate:
"WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton, your party's leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost. A letter to today's USA Today calls his comments "treasonous" and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would wipe his boots with Senator Reid. Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?"
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh043007.shtml

schaller = limbaugh's BFF wiliiams

The question is, can Hillary increase Dem performance among women without an equal decline in performance among men?

And I think the answer to that is "maybe". I could imagine scenarios where she picks up 8% of women while losing 4% of men or something like that. But I could also imagine scenarios where it's roughly even. It feels very hard to predict.

Of course, it could also be said that African Americans, and African-American men in particular, are undermobilized, so maybe Obama can win Mississippi. Or maybe Edwards can bring more lower-middle class voters back to the Democratic party. It seems that each have their possibilities.

Looking at the map, the area that has shown the most post-'04 realignment is the Ohio River Valley, which suggests Edwards is probably the best pick. There doesn't seem to be any regional realignment occuring at all.

The result of a gender-based realignment would be a Male Party, and a Female Party. Women would be voting for Hillary because she's a woman, and men would flock to the Republican candidate because he's a man. I'd just be sitting home and making plans to flee to Canada.

In all seriousness, that is what would happen. Women will vote for a female candidate because they'll feel she can understand them better than a male candidate. Men will vote for a Male Candidate because they will feel he can understand them better. Inter-gender hostility will futher this effect, with men voting for the male candidate to spite women who vote for the female candidate, and vice versa. Whether you want to call it Sexism, Rational Interest, or the desire of the Yin to balance the Yang, whatever. I don't see this as being a magic bullet.

I'd like to add that we live in a very sexist society, and many women have internalized this sexism. Men aren't limited by years of ingrained social guilt, or a socialized deference to the opposite sex. Because of this, the likely result will be a loss in men greater than the gain in women.

I think in order to reach soullite's conclusion, I'd need to know which GOP man we're getting - I can see some GOP guys making a real success dividing by gender; I can see others pushing so hard for men that they push more moderate Republican women over to the Dems,

Reemember, I think the point here is that younger women don't vote, at least not in proportion to their overall numbers. If Clinton draws more young single women into voting their own inetersts, combined with holding other Democratic bases (that's the question, really), then, like Rove, she'd prove that drawing people into voting is a real winning strategy.

But mostly, I don't buy Schaller's premise. I think Clinton's candidacy is problematic, but not for dragging out "generational culture wars" - I think she's just a deeply flawed candidate bringing a lot of baggage of the Clinton era with her (including, though no one likes to discuss it, that Bill Clinton is problematic). There's no clear picture of who Mrs. Clinton is, what she will support and what she will fight; and frankly, I don't trust her even if she came out tomorrow and said she'd fight for every liberal cause imaginable. But what I suspect is that these concerns don't matter; that what Scahller describes about young women has already happened, and it can't really be stopped. It's not whether women will go for Clinton, it's what anyone can do since they already have.. And I don't think Obama or Edwards know how to fight that.

Is Hillary the only candidate that can mobilize single women? She may have an advantage, but it can't be that women would only respond to another woman? That seems a rather retro conclusion.

I would bet that women under the age of 35, to the extant that they were paying attention to politics in the 90's at all, were among those of us that felt sorry for both Monica and Hillary, thought Bill was a cad but forgave him anyway, and pretty much wanted to tell the Republicans to stuff it. I was 35 (or so) in 1998 and was an eager MoveOn member. So whatever 'generational culture wars' are in opereation are going to help her with that particular group. She will lose some of the diehard sexist men, but not that many in my opinion. She was the toughest one on the stage in the last debate, and even men who don't like her know she is strong - that is why they don't like her. Also, a lot of people still see her as a lot more liberal then she really is, thanks to 15 years of the Right Wing Noise Machine. So many of the casual voters see her as a liberal, rather than a moderate, while the ones paying attention know she is no liberal. She has a tightrope to walk to manage all of these forces, but I really think she can do it.

All that said, do I think she is a phony? Do I like her? I think she is taking advantage of ALL the cards she was dealt in the 90's, including the misperceptions. And I still think she understands and explains issues better than anyone out there. I like her. I may agree more with Edwards' solutions, but I think Hillary is every bit as electable as he. Maybe more.

Just a clarification to my earlier post. I meant that the men who don't like her for sexist reasons dislike that fact that she is strong - though I believe "strident" is the word they usually use. I don't mean that all men who dislike her do so for that particular reason. There are certainly plenty of other reasons.

Why would one expect an influx of single, female, new voters to the Democrats to cause a realignment? I'm not saying it wouldn't be a huge boon to the party, or that that boon wouldn't necessarily be a lasting one, but I think it's playing a little loose with the terminology to call it a "realignment."

Is that true? Younger women don't vote? I was sort of under the impression they voted in higher numbers than younger men because they are (all evidence to the contrary) greater believers in government as vs, say, the work world, where they tend to get kicked around a lot and nothing exists to stop it, even in theory.

I'm not sure Clinton has appeal for single people of either gender. Everytime I hear her she's going on about "you and your families" in what I find to be a patronizing way. This is not particularly reassuring to people who have to try to pull it all off by themselves.

Really, I almost think that Edwards' poverty approach has more appeal for single women, all Sex-in-the-City superficiality aside-- crap I hope I'm not going to get shoved down my throat. There is more to me than my reproductive organs. Honest.

In response to Col Bat Guano, I don't think Hillary is the only one who could mobilize single women, but her campaign seems to be the only one who had identified them as a particular group to go after. It will be interesting to see how they do this. I think the right to chose should be a given, and the Iraq war and economic issues should be paramount, followed by the environment. Edwards should be able to address these concerns just as effectively, but we will see if he does.

Hillary is the worst candidate to bring in unmarried women, because she can't do so without alienating men (and moderate-to-conservative women) of all stripes.

It's a catch-22: on the one hand, she's amazing at expressing solidarity and could probably whip up some unmarried-women fever. But as the results of France's latest election suggests, doing so would probably backfire. Obama and Edwards both could attract this demographic while having cross-over appeal.

"Hillary is the worst candidate to bring in unmarried women, because she can't do so without alienating men (and moderate-to-conservative women) of all stripes."

I don't get it. Does anybody get this?

While speculating about presidential candidates is timely and taking about presidentially-based realignment an every four year occurrence (almost), the point here is that this country is going under its own realignment based on huge demographic changes. And, that realignment will drive our politics, our business, our retail, housing, etc. industries. This country is becoming a majority unmarried country. Right now, a majority of households are headed by an unmarried person. Unmarried women are driving this change. So, this is not about women versus men, a female versus male party or election, this is about understanding the fastest growing large demograpohic in this country and how to tap their energies and strengths and ensure that they participate in American democracy at the same rates as their married sisters.

I recommend all read Harvard's new study on housing trends and how single women are driving that market and the changes in that market. 22% of all sales are now unmarried women. So, we need to put our politics in context with what is happening demographically in this country.