I doubt that there would be calls of man-whore or anything like that if a woman came out of the woodworks and said that, three years ago, she had a "one night stand" that didn't even end in sex with some male political candidate.
This is politics, people will make a big deal out of ANYTHING to belittle their competitors.
I believe their concern is that a whole new line of attacking women candidates has emerged that doesn't exist with male candidates.
I guess I just don't see it. This is a one-off incident, not a worrying trend.
I agree. I totally oppose the slandering and mudslinging that goes on between politicians, but it's unavoidable, particularly when the person doing the slandering is a member of the general public. If he wants to blog about the details of their (almost) sexual relationship, he will. It's deplorable, but true, and O'Donnell pays the price tenfold since she's running for a public office.
The "worrying trend" is that campaigns have so much to do with the personal lives of the candidates. And that's a trend that has been around forever, I'd imagine, although with current technology and resources it's a lot easier to dig up shit about somebody than it was previously.
-J