Voting without choice?

There's a piece by Jessica Valenti in The Nation in which she's engaging - critically - with the idea that for a woman to support Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination is a betrayal of feminism. This has got to be one of the most puzzling claims around at the moment, since it so obviously courts the counter-charge that to support Clinton against Obama suggests an unsound attitude to the prospect of a black president. Where the opposed candidates both come from historically disadvantaged groups and both promise an unprecedented incumbency should the Democrat win in November, support for one or other of them on the grounds of which of the two groups they come from cannot be decisive. It could be argued, I suppose, that women must support Clinton not because of anything to do with Obama's ethnicity but simply because they're women. But would those making this argument want to say that African-Americans must all support Obama? I doubt it. And what of those who are women and African-Americans? Or are they the only people allowed an open choice? Then again, one may wonder what has become of the notion of assessing the personal leadership credentials of the candidates.