Obama needs to win over Clinton's female supporters

— -- Barack Obama at last has won the endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the woman who came closer to the Democratic presidential nomination than any other. Now he has to win over her millions of female supporters.

Women have been sent to "the back of the bus" again, says Mary Jane Coughlin, 46, a Long Island copywriter who says she will write in Clinton's name in November rather than vote for Obama. "We work twice as hard to get half as far."

Four years ago, women made up more than half the electorate. Democrat John Kerry edged out President Bush among women, 51%-48%, according to surveys of voters as they left polling places.

Obama has said he will stress the differences between himself and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, especially on issues such as health care, judicial appointments and abortion rights. Obama campaign spokeswoman Linda Douglass says female voters will respond to Obama's life in a "female-centric" family, as he discusses the influences of his mother, grandmother, wife and mother-in-law. The gender gap in the primaries wasn't anti-Obama, she says, but pro-Clinton. "I don't think it was about him, it was about her."

Groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America, which endorsed the Illinois senator last month, will also help. The abortion-rights group plans to spend $10 million in the presidential and congressional elections this year, said president Nancy Keenan. It also will target independent and GOP women who favor abortion rights, particularly suburban ones in Pennsylvania and other swing states.

These voters "could be the margin of victory in this race," Keenan says. "They will move once they understand the record of Barack Obama on pro-choice issues."

Clinton consistently won the votes of women during the primaries. Women 65 and older were strongest in their support: She won them by an average of 24 percentage points in contests where voters were surveyed as they left polling places.

In her farewell remarks Saturday, Clinton urged her supporters to back Obama, but acknowledged that their desire to elect a woman will have to wait. "We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Sen. Obama is our next president," Clinton said.

Obama could face a challenge to win over some women who, in Clinton's loss, feel they've been disrespected by the Democratic Party and are stinging over what they believe was sexism in cable news coverage of her campaign.

"If Hillary's not respected, none of us are respected," says Sky Underwood, 57, a New York designer who volunteered for Clinton.

Obama already is courting Clinton's female supporters in the Senate, including California's Dianne Feinstein and Maryland's Barbara Mikulski. "Barack needs to reach out to many of these women," says Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., an early Obama supporter. She says Obama will be "calling and visiting with them and talking to them about how important they are to this campaign."

On Sunday, Feinstein summed Clinton's hold on female voters. "Women were really invested in this candidacy," she said on ABC. "And they believe she got treated poorly."

In interviews last week before Clinton formally bowed out, Obama talked about his plans to make college affordable and for health coverage — just two issues of concern to many female voters.

"For that 45-year-old woman who is trying to figure out 'How am I going to send my kid to college?' I've got a plan to make college more affordable. John McCain doesn't," he said in an interview Thursday on CNN. The two candidates also differ on abortion — Obama supports abortion rights; McCain does not — which will be an issue in future Supreme Court appointments, Obama said.

"There's nothing to get you over grief so much as getting you mad," says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "And once (female voters) focus on McCain and his record on women, they're going to get mad."

Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY's List, which supports Democratic women who favor abortion rights, also predicts Clinton supporters will jump to Obama — in time. "The vast majority of Democratic women will go through their own process and conclude that they want Barack Obama in the White House," she says.

Some Clinton supporters, however, still wonder when a woman will be able to break the glass ceiling that Clinton did not. Record numbers of women serve in the Senate and in governorships, but "the pipeline doesn't have a ton of women in it," Lake says.

It's also not clear to some Clinton supporters when the next woman will catch fire and propel a candidacy into contention.

"If not her, who?" asked Underwood, the Clinton volunteer. "If not now, when?"

Contributing: Fredreka Schouten