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Melissa Haussman cannot wrap her mind around why young women would vote for Barack Obama.

"It disappoints me greatly," said the professor of political science at Carleton University, an American who drove to New Hampshire last week to work on Hillary Clinton's campaign. "Your grandmothers chained themselves to the White House fence so that you could vote."

In the narrative of Hillary versus Barack that has emerged from the Democratic presidential primaries, it's easy to pit feminists against fraternities, XX chromosome versus Generation X and its younger siblings.

The power to name a president has been thrown to a new majority, both sides say, the only question remaining: Will it be women or children first?

Ms. Clinton's narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday was won with the support of female voters, propelled to the polls en masse by outrage, organization and the palpable desire to make history with the first female U.S. president.

In the Iowa caucus just five days earlier, though, it was voters younger than 30 who arrived in droves, also propelled by a vision: that it is their generation - and their candidate, Mr. Obama - who will rescue America from itself and from Iraq, thereby restoring hope to the world. Mr. Obama also narrowly edged out Ms. Clinton among women there.

But is it really that simple?

Ms. Clinton has leaned heavily on the youth message since her loss in Iowa, even referring to student loans in her victory speech on Tuesday, but it is the fact of her gender, used against her or painstakingly ignored throughout most of the campaign, that seems to be moving young voters in her direction.

Even younger women who would not support her on the sole basis that she's female were arguably rallied to her cause after the candidate's "emotional" display on Monday, finding themselves in her corner not because she cried, but because her candid moment was interpreted by some as proof women aren't tough enough to lead.

Mr. Obama, too, is apparently able to bridge demographic divides as well as party politics, using his New Hampshire speech to link female suffrage to the equality his ascendancy represents. The aspirational message he offers to a younger generation, raised to believe itself capable of big things, may yet infect their parents, too.

And it is his long-held opposition to the war in Iraq that stands to rally to him the most support.

"The idea that Obama holds some magnetic appeal cannot be separated from the war in Iraq," said Dr. Robert Jackson, a politics professor at the University of Redlands in California.

Nor is Mr. Obama simply regarded as a saviour or a sweetheart, as Ms. Clinton has suggested, but as an ideological standard-bearer, the first candidate of the campaign to speak directly to the party's unabashedly idealistic side, in stirringly transcendent language. It is no wonder that he plays well with younger voters.

"This is a generation that intends to make grand statements, both in their own lives and in what they do for others," said Ann Fishman, of New Orleans-based political consultancy Generational Targeted Marketing. "And they don't expect anything different from a political candidate."

The results of a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press give the impression that Mr. Obama was tailor-made to woo the youth demographic.

Describing "generation next" - 18- to 25-year-olds who came of age with personal computers, the Internet and the shadow of Sept. 11, 2001 - the Pew Center found that nearly one in five has no religious affiliation, and that the majority are pro-immigration, in favour of same-sex marriage, colour-blind, pro-choice and against the Iraq war.

They are also programmed to embrace the manner in which Mr. Obama delivers his message. He is perhaps the first politician capable of encouraging a crowd to "give it up for" his wife and then assuring them that, "in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

Having been weaned on the media, their teenage years steeped in Hollywood, this demographic has grown to expect the grand oration of cinematic presidents like Jed Bartlet on The West Wing.

"They've seen the media's portrait of what a great president is and they like it, they want it," Ms. Fishman said.

And yet, Dr. Haussman believes, the under-30 electorate is just beginning to recognize the potential impact of a female presidency - another first that could give Democratic voters something to be proud of.

"She is the first candidate with a realistic chance of winning and that's hugely significant," Dr. Haussman said. "And that does need to be impressed upon people."

In New Hampshire, Ms. Clinton won 46 per cent of women's votes, 57 per cent of those older than 65 and even captured a significant proportion of support within the female 25-30 demographic, signalling that the message is beginning to get through.

Janna Ferguson, a 25-year-old Canadian doing her doctorate in political science at Rutgers University, worked on Ms. Clinton's New Hampshire campaign. She noticed a significant change of attitude toward Ms. Clinton among the young women she canvassed after the candidate famously teared up at the beginning of the week.

"I think, in a lot of ways, the rampant sexism with which she has been treated has been a galvanizing force not only for the older women, but for younger women as well," she said. "I think that was important - not the moment itself, but the response to it, in getting younger women to take another look at Hillary."

This sentiment was echoed by the writer Emily Bazelon of Slate on Tuesday, who described the conflicting emotions many women experience when considering Hillary the candidate and Hillary the "first Democratic Woman Waging A Serious Run for President."

"We can have our doubts about the first one and still root, on some level, for the second," she wrote. "And even if we're not certain we ultimately want her to win, we sure don't want her embarrassed by a run of heavy early losses."

So will women of all ages continue to move toward Ms. Clinton as the race continues, or bristle at her record once a message of solidarity has been sent? And if the youth vote continues to materialize at the polls, will young people be able to convince older Democrats that their man is more than just a grade-school crush?

"I have no idea what the next couple of races are going to look like," Ms. Ferguson said. "The demographic divide has been that muddied."

FEMALE VOTING POWER

Women voters have outnumbered men since 1980, and with a woman in serious contention for the White House for the first time, the female vote is more crucial than ever.

6.8

The percentage by which women outvoted men in the 2004 presidential election.

1980

The first presidential election in which more women voted than men, which has been the case every year since then.

67.6/64

The percentage of woman of voting age who are registered, compared with the percentage of men in the last presidential vote.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau