One for the women: It ain’t that bleak

“Misogyny and hate.”

That’s what one of my Leftist Facebook friends commented, after Sen. Elizabeth Warren ended her presidential campaign yesterday and I posted this: “AP reports Elizabeth Warren has taken my advice and quit the race.” 

I replied that he used “misogyny’ because he couldn’t use “racism,” his usual default to explain the evils of the world.

I used a “feeling silly” emoji to indicate AP did not use those exact words, but in an evaluation of Super Tuesday, I did say Warren should quit the race — “if you can’t win your home, go home” — and also said Mike Bloomberg “is a data guy and the data is telling him he can’t win.”

In other words, follow the lead of Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg and clear out when it is clear you can’t win.

When Warren later declined to throw her support to either of the remaining candidates, I accused her of choking.

I got some reasonable pushback on that, but I stand by it. Her neutrality hurts Bernie Sanders because Joe Biden now has what they are calling Joementum.

I have not announced who I am for, but I have announced who I am against: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, but I still want Bernie to have a clean shot. Warren had one, and remember for a while she was in the lead, according to polls.

Other Leftists were calling me — and America — misogynist because Warren failed to get to the top of the mountain. At the risk of mansplaining, I will deal with what two women said.

First, Warren said that little girls would have to wait four more years to feel validated by a “woman in the White House.” Buttigieg didn’t say that about young gays, Bloomie didn’t say that about young Jews, and Julian Castro didn’t say that about young Hispanics.

Tribal America likes to see our “own” succeed, and there’s nothing wrong with that. African-Americans were ecstatic — and surprised — when Barack Obama won. 

What Warren said sounded self-absorbed, more so than the “cracks in the ceiling” that candidate Hillary Clinton mentioned.

Last night on MSNBC, New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay said that Warren was the most qualified and experienced person  in the race (more so than Senator and Vice President Biden?), and her reporting led her to conclude too many Americans would not vote for a woman.

This is odd, given that women are a majority of Americans, and a majority of enrolled Democrats. Clearly, Warren couldn’t get enough women to vote for her.

Let’s correct the collective amnesia that grips the bellyachers.

Just four years ago, 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump — 65,815,543 versus 62,984,828. So how sexist are we? 

She won the popular vote, but too many of her votes were in the wrong place. Even her supporters admit she was a mediocre candidate and she took some blue states for granted.

Since America already has given its majority to a woman candidate, there is no reason to believe it would not do so again, given the right candidate.

That it did not happen this time is less due to sexism than to a candidate who did not perform as well as she needed and expected to perform.

On Super Tuesday, she finished third in her home state. How do you chalk that up to misogyny? Massachusetts voters twice elected her to the U.S. Senate — over male candidates. 

This is the logical place to end, but I have to add something: I cannot deny there is some sexism in our electorate, just as there is racism and anti-Semitism and homophobia and even anti-Mormon sentiment, pollsters found when Mitt Romney ran. 

If you, as a “minority” candidate, allow yourself to be defined like that, defined by others, you put on iron shoes at the beginning of the race. Winners don’t whine and whiners don’t win.