Why Clinton voters say they won't support Obama

The attack of the PUMAs, or a dozen reasons why Clinton voters are still too angry to come home.

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: Democratic Party, Abortion, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Women's Movement, Gender, Opinion, Rebecca Traister, Barack Obama, 2008 election

June 23, 2008 | If you're a dedicated Democrat -- or perhaps even one of those fed-up Republicans we've heard about -- there's a good chance you're pretty stoked right about now. After a grueling but thrilling primary contest, we at last have decided on a history-making, barrier-breaking Democratic presidential candidate. You're excited! You're inspired! You're ready to hit rural Ohio with enough campaign literature to choke a wavering independent!

But why do you keep hearing all these stories about grumpy old ladies still hung up on Hillary Clinton, the ones who're threatening to make a scene at the Democratic convention in Denver, or vote for John McCain in November?

To be fair, it's not just women. There are plenty of Clinton supporters of every demographic description who are still ticked. But yes, it's true that the Clinton base skewed female, and that women over 30 are the most vocal of the malcontents. Some of them are calling themselves "PUMAs" (as in "Party Unity My Ass"), an acronym that makes them sound, appropriately enough, like cougars in a very bad mood. Who are these women, and why are they such buzzkills?

Remember that classic of pop-psychological cheese, "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus"? This offensive but rhetorically useful book (yes, I'm invoking it; address your letters of complaint to rtraister@salon.com) states that often, in conflict, women simply want to be heard. They want to air their grievances and let their opponents know where they're coming from. Now the Democratic Party is moving forward, as it must, but it is doing so without giving the Clinton women a real hearing -- without letting them vent their anger. It is the social equivalent of talking over them, waving off their complaints, assuming they'll come around. This is a mistake. This is only making things worse (even if, as Walter Shapiro notes, history says they will come around, no matter how many PUMA T-shirts and Web sites like this one may be sprouting now).

In the spirit of this kind of communication and rapprochement, I figured it might be a valuable exercise to examine the different flavors of anger that your Clinton-supporting peers may be experiencing right now. Here are a dozen reasons why some Clinton supporters are mad and are not yet ready -- even as their candidate joins him on the hustings -- to put on Barack Obama buttons.

This list is not comprehensive. It is based on interviews with women at Clinton's June 3 nonconcession speech and her June 7 concession speech, and on comments I heard from some attendees at an EMILY's List conference a week after Clinton bowed out. It undoubtedly misrepresents the feelings of any number of Hillary heads. This is merely an attempt to give space to, describe and otherwise make a record of the grievances of a number of deeply committed political people who have just had their hearts broken. So without further ado: an incomplete taxonomy of post-primary rage.

1. They are angry because their candidate lost a close contest.

This is just simple human math, and it happens after every primary showdown. Remember that it took some Deaniacs months to come around to John Kerry in 2004. It's just that most years, the contests haven't also been identity-politics duels between two underrepresented social groups vying for a chance at a political position that has always been denied them.

Another difference is just how close and engrossing this race became. It's hard to lose, especially when the finishes were often photo-worthy, when the possibility of upset lurked around every corner. And for those Obama supporters who say "Come on, it was over for months; it was an irresponsible fiction that Hillary ever had a chance," it may be useful to imagine how it might have felt to have had the candidates' situations fully reversed: Clinton winning more pledged delegates, many of them coming from caucus states and red states, Obama nipping at her heels in the popular vote and winning big states and purple states and two states whose votes weren't fully counted, Florida and Michigan. Imagine how maddening it would be to believe your candidate was the better bet in the general election but was denied the nomination by quirks of the process. You'd be pissed, right? Furious! It would be 2000 and our flawed electoral system all over again. So that's a start at imagining how an angry Clinton supporter feels -- except that you probably never saw Clinton as the underdog, so there's not the equivalent feeling of electric, explosive grass-roots momentum having been quashed. But remember that from her supporters' perspective, she spent all of primary season post-Iowa as the underdog, so they probably feel a lot more like this than you can imagine.

2. They are angry because their historic opportunity is over.

Getting excited about changing history felt awesome. I can't emphasize it enough: This had never happened before. And it was fun. Exhilarating. Hopeful. Changing. All of that. When Michelle Obama guest-hosted "The View" last week, Whoopi Goldberg told her how wonderful it was to see her face on the news all the time, because we don't often see black women like her portrayed in the media. But we had also never before seen pantsuits on the stump, had never seen a female candidate's face behind a debate podium, had never heard a woman's high-pitched forced laughter when she answered interview questions on TV. These were all novelties, and also how progress happens. Before our eyes. Now that part is over. And that makes people sad.

3. They are angry about rumors that Obama may choose a woman other than Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

This is a tricky one. Maybe some Clinton supporters remain so besotted by the idea of their woman as the history maker that they won't be satisfied unless Clinton or someone from her direct bloodline is the first female to breach the executive branch of government.

In reality, however, it's more that the other female politicians whose names are being bandied about (cough, Kathleen Sebelius, cough) seem like pallid substitutes, and the only reason Team Obama would even pick one is to placate stubborn Clinton supporters. It wouldn't placate them.

But this is one of the facets of post-Clinton anger that puts Obama in a hell of a bind. Because the truth is that many of Clinton's most devoted supporters overcame their own ambivalence about her because they believed it was so important to establish a precedent, to break the glass ceiling and put a woman in a job that has never been filled by a woman before. A female vice president, especially a Democratic one, is not nothing. And everyone who watched the glee with which Clinton's failed bid was met should know that. But it's true that if Obama goes with a woman, and decides (as seems certain) not to tap Clinton herself, he must pick someone who has something more going for her than a pair of mams. He needs someone who generates heat of her own, who can energize a crowd, who can do something for him besides providing him with a gender credential. Who is that?

4. They are angry that we started to talk about sexism only once Clinton stopped being a threat.

Yes, it's great that we are finally having panels and conferences and news stories about the way in which Clinton's candidacy was met with an enormous amount of gendered antipathy from the media. (And for any of you sitting at your computers yammering about how the coverage of Clinton had nothing to do with her sex, allow me to be frank: can it.) Those discussions shouldn't stop. But it is painfully obvious that this was a conversation that could only be had once Clinton stopped threatening Obama's prospects, or men generally. This is really depressing.

Next page: During a panel on gender and the election, Howard Dean's name was the only one that got booed