Gender yields no extra credit

Gov. Beverly Perdue has no special status among the state's female voters.

After a News & Observer story examined the relative few women serving high positions within Perdue's administration, Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen noted that Perdue didn't get extra support from Republican or independent women in her election.

The Democratic firm looked at exit polls to determine that she earned a smaller percentage of the female vote than President Barack Obama and Sen. Kay Hagan. 

Perdue, despite her status as the state's first female Governor, has no unique appeal to women voters. She got few, if any, extra votes last fall from Republicans or independent women who wanted a woman in that office. Folks who would normally have voted Republican still did. And women aren't cutting Perdue any slack for the issues she's had during her first eight months as Governor, evaluating her more or less the same way men are.