Some See Sexism in Calls for Clinton To Quit

NEW ALBANY, Ind. — Debra Starks has heard the calls for Senator Clinton to quit the presidential race, and she's not happy about it.

The 53-year old Wal-Mart clerk, so bedecked with Clinton campaign buttons most days that friends call her "Button Lady," thinks sexism is playing a role in efforts to push the New York senator from the race. Ms. Starks wants Mrs. Clinton to push back.

"The way I look at it, she's a strong woman and she needs to stay in there. She needs to fight," Ms. Starks said at a Clinton campaign rally. "If you want to be president, you have to fight for what you want. If she stays in there and does what she's supposed to do, I think she'll be on her way."

Amid mounting calls from top Democrats for Mrs. Clinton to step aside and clear the path for rival Senator Obama, strategists are warning of damage to the party's chances in November if women — who make up the majority of Democratic voters nationwide, but especially the older, white working-class women who've long formed the former first lady's base — sense a mostly male party establishment is unfairly muscling Mrs. Clinton out of the race.

"Women will indeed be upset if it appears people are trying to push Hillary Clinton out of the way," the South Carolina Democratic Party chair who is backing Mr. Obama, Carol Fowler, said. "If you are going to ask her to withdraw, you'd better be making a strong case for it — both to the candidate and the public."

Senator Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, last week became the first leading Democrat to openly call on Mrs. Clinton to abandon her bid and back Mr. Obama, a sentiment shared by many activists worried that a drawn-out nominating contest only bolsters Senator McCain.

Other Mr. Obama supporters have echoed that view while stopping short of asking Mrs. Clinton to withdraw.

Governor Richardson of New Mexico yesterday called Mr. Obama's lead all but insurmountable, while Senator Kerry of Massachusetts said the contest would be reaching "a point of judgment" very soon.

"I don't think it's up to our campaign or any individual to tell Hillary Clinton or their campaign when that is," Mr. Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, said on ABC's "This Week" yesterday. "But there will be, I think, a consensus about it, and I think it's going to occur over these next weeks."