WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?
AT TOMMY’S RESTAURANT IN CLEVELAND Heights, Ohio, where the menu ranges from egg creams to vegan tempeh burgers, there’s something for every age and political persuasion. So when Carolyn Smith went there recently to celebrate her 78th birthday with dinner and milk shakes, she and her daughter and granddaughter became an instant focus group on Hillary Clinton. Is the candidate making history, and how much does it matter if she is? As you might guess from exit polls, Carolyn voted for Clinton—most older women did. Her 49-year-old daughter Cindy voted for Bernie Sanders but is “coming around.” And granddaughter Josephine Sicking, 18—well, she wasn’t sold at all.
“She’s the most qualified person in history,” protests Cindy, a hairdresser with a bright purple streak in her hair, trying to cajole her daughter. “A woman’s outlook, a woman’s intuition, a woman’s empathy—we need some of that,” says Carolyn.
But Josephine will not budge. Wearing a homemade tie-dyed T-shirt, a cigarette tucked behind her ear, she couldn’t care less about Clinton’s cracking the glass ceiling. She sees Sanders’ defeat as evidence of a vast conspiracy against political fairness. “Even if Hillary wins, it’s just the lesser of two evils,” Josephine
