THOUGH SENATOR OBAMA'S FEMININITY MATTERS MORE IN THE GENERAL:

Swing Low, Sweet Hillary (BEN SMITH, 5/6/08, Politico)

The ballsy fighter is the newest persona for a woman whom public life has taken from a liberal policy wonk to a devoted wife, from a wronged woman to a cerebral senator.

Just as this campaign, a campaign that began obsessed with showing strength, was revived with a show of vulnerability in New Hampshire. Last fall, she was the ultimate wonk; this spring, she's emerged as a beer-swigging, never-say-die populist—proud of her toughness above all, mocking out-of-touch elites and deriding economists as a class.

Skeptics might say these kaleidoscopic transformations have been, themselves, a bit ballsy.

Now, the candidate who would be the first woman president is being described as, metaphorically, a man.

The historical record isn't exactly packed with presidential elections won by the less masculine candidate.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2008 6:21 AM