Elaine Meyer

Because I voted for Bill de Blasio in the New York City mayoral primary and not Christine Quinn, I asked myself periodically throughout the campaign whether this meant I had some kind of hidden bias against a fellow woman running for office.

I thought of this again today when I saw an article by Jodi Kantor and Kate Taylor of the New York Times about whether Christine Quinn lost the mayoral primary because she is a woman and a lesbian:

In interviews with allies and opponents, as well as members of the Quinn campaign team, not one person blamed her loss wholly, or even mostly, on gender.

But many of them also said that watching her candidacy was like seeing scenes from a depressingly familiar movie — a bad local remake of Clinton 2008.

Democratic voters who expressed unfavorable views of Ms. Quinn in New York Times/Siena College polls described her in follow-up interviews as “ambitious,” “petty,” “mean,” “bossy,” “self-interested,” “defensive,” “combative” and “argumentative.

She was the target of an unusual level of visceral hatred, including a band of protesters who screamed at her on the street and interrupted her events.

Men, and some women, regularly called her voice grating.

“Nice lady, but if I have to listen to that voice for four years, I’ll die,” John A. Catsimatidis, a Republican candidate, said.

As the article alluded to, it reminded me of the 2008 Democratic primary, in which I supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, who would have been ...