Questions, questions

Dana Goldstein reports from Hillary Clinton's Planned Parenthood speech:

My last dispatch from the Planned Parethood presidential forum is up this morning, on Hillary Clinton's speech. All three campaigns were impressive, but Hillary definitely had the strongest take away -- she simply has more experience working on these issues, from her time as an attorney, through her international work as first lady, to her voice as a Senate leader on choice, Plan B, and comprehensive sex-ed.

Interestingly, the male college student who accompanied me to the event pronounced Hillary "soporific." Sigh.

I would be surprised if Hillary Clinton knew less about reproductive rights than any of the other candidates. But I have to ask: Did this male college student consider Hillary's policy speech "soporific" because he's a man and therefore, we must presume, compromised on the issue? Or did this male college student consider Hillary's policy speech "soporific" because it was a policy speech--delivered no less by Hillary Clinton, legendarily soporific public speaker?

Questions, questions.

Comments

[Augie]

Sigh...Okay, can we put to rest the lie that men and women have different attitudes about abortion? It may seem intuitively true, but empirically it just isn't. (See Morris Fiorina's "Culture War?" - I'd link to it if I knew how to in comment threads). While there are certainly religious and geographic divides on this issue, it is simply not true that women are likely to be any more pro-choice than men. Now, some pro-choice women may be more PASSIONATE about the subject than pro-choice men (something I expect to be true), but in the aggregate, men and women are not different in statistically significant ways.

So no, I don't think being a "man" compromised him on this issue.

[Brian]

I completely agree.