Unity Deferred – Can You Cross Out ‘Hillary’ and Write ‘Sarah’? – NYTimes.com.

“It turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet!” That was Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, as Senator John McCain introduced her to the country as his vice-presidential nominee. “We can shatter that glass ceiling!” she proclaimed.

What’s a woman to do? Or at least, the woman who so badly wanted to see a woman in the White House?

Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.

Not. So. Fast.

That underestimated, or at least underappreciated, the raw feelings of many Clinton supporters, and particularly the women among them, despite the almost flawless display of harmony in Denver.

At the very least, Ms. Palin’s selection unleashes gender as a live issue again, just when Democrats thought they had it under control. (This might not be a bad time for Mr. Obama to reconsider that question of retiring Mrs. Clinton’s campaign debt.)

“This puts the issue back on center stage,” said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “There are going to be some really fascinating conversations that are going to come up around gender, in some ways that nobody expected.”

“It’s not about being bitter for Hillary,” she said. Still, “I think the Democratic Party took women for granted in the primary, they didn’t step on sexism when they should have, and I can’t support them.”

Yes, they said, they were troubled by Ms. Palin’s opposition to abortion rights. But Ms. Hoover said she felt betrayed by pro-choice groups, and in particular politicians like Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who were helped into office by pro-choice groups like Emily’s List but came out early to support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, despite her being the first viable pro-choice woman to run for president.

Ms. Hoover has stopped giving to Emily’s List as a result. “It doesn’t make sense to me that, frankly, Emily’s List didn’t hold them accountable for having been elected on that platform but then not supporting that platform,” she said. “The setback for the pro-choice movement is almost deserved.”