The polls were wrong.
The "Bradley effect" in which white voters say they will vote for a black candidate but actually won't.
A late surge of women.
College students and independents who planned to vote for Obama simply didn't vote, or voted for McCain because they thought Obama had it in the bag.
Hillary's "tears."
Who really knows? No one.
Depending on how the race ultimately is decided, this may be still be debated in history books.
However, there is one possibility I haven't heard discussed and that is the effect of an op-ed by Gloria Steinem in Tuesday's New York Times. The article talked about how
Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.
Steinem went on to say that we have actually come further in racial equality than in gender equality and implied that is why Obama did better than Clinton in Iowa. She all but issued a challenge to the voters of New Hampshire to consider this when they cast their vote that day.
What worries me is that she [Clinton] is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.
What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.
What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.
What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who
disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman."
What's significant about this article is that on Tuesday morning it apparently made the email rounds of women all over the country, including women in New Hampshire. Some women reported receiving multiple emails with a link to the article. I even received one here in California, from a young women who, like me, is an Obama supporter. She told me that it made her think of things differently. Why should she be any different than the thousands of women who voted on Tuesday in New Hampshire?
I don't think anyone can discount the enormous impact this op-ed may have had on changing some women's minds. Steinem appealed to the gender solidarity women feel and gave them permission not only to vote for Hillary because she is a woman, but to NOT vote for Obama even though he is black.
Yet I hear no male blogger or male pundit on television even referring to it. Not being women, they probably didn't get the email.
The fact that the male commentators are not even considering the power of an under-the-radar email campaign like this tells me they are completely missing the boat. But then, why should we be surprised that men don't understand women? The genders have never understood each other very well.
Women are not the rugged individualists that men pretend to be. Women are part of social networks, and it's emails like this that have profound impact. Women could decide the presidency this time around, right under the noses of men who don't even see it happening.
In previous elections, male analysts tried to characterize women voters, who only had male candidates to vote for, as "soccer moms" or "security moms." This time, it's liable to be something the male analysts don't understand at all. This time women - moms, grandmoms, and those who are not moms - have a chance to vote for one of their own, and their power and solidarity should not be underestimated.
