Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, becoming the first female to head a major party ticket in U.S. history. But just being a “woman” isn’t what some Texas women are looking for. Some are vowing to feel the “Bern” for Clinton’s opponent Bernie Sanders until he no longer does.
Outside the state Capitol, Fort Worth teacher Amanda Lipstien is having lunch with her two children following her tour of the Capitol grounds. For Lipstien, today is a big deal for women and young girls conscious of the 2016 presidential race.
“I was watching Hillary’s speech and she was mentioning that we are standing on all of the shoulders of all the women that have paved the way and it hasn’t even been a hundred years since women won the power to vote and it’s just incredible,” she says.
But not every Democratic female voter is ready to jump from the Sanders ship. Younger voters like Daisy Hynds-Riddle have pledged to support Bernie Sanders through the July convention in Philadelphia. She says having a first female presumptive nominee in a presidential race is a big deal but it isn’t the most important aspect of the 2016 race.
“I think politics is one of the last places where there is a strong in-balance between men and women, but I feel like for me it’s definitely not the MOST important thing,” she says.
Hynds-Riddle says for herself and many of her girlfriends it’s Sanders focus on domestic social service issues that is most important to them.
Patsy Woods Martin is the executive director of the group, Annie’s List, a non-profit that works to get Democratic women elected to local and state office.
“This is historic and I think we need to educate younger women and men about that. I know I talk a lot as I tour the state about the fact that when I went to college women couldn’t own their own checkbook or banking account and probably I had not talked about that to my daughters so how would they know,” she says.
And efforts to get the party to unite behind its presumptive nominee are underway in Texas as the state’s Democratic convention begins next week.
