I'm fully aware that the media has to lump people into categories. They only have a small amount of time to say what they have to say in a given hour, with all the other news going on. However it seems to me that some of the lumping is getting a little silly. I suppose this is a diary about myself in the end. I find sometimes that pointing the looking glass at yourself is the best way to understand the outside, or at least gain some perspective.
I'm a white woman. Thirty-six, from upstate (or as I like to call it, the "red state" part of) New York, north of Albany. I'm a lifelong Democrat, along with the majority of my family. I went to college for a Liberal Arts/Broadcast degree, but did not graduate. I'm not a dummy - factors beyond my control forced me out of school. I pay attention to politics, local and national. I vote in every election. I work with the developmentally disabled and make considerably less than 50,000 a year. The area I live in is economically depressed. It's a summer/winter kind of place, where the businesses depend on tourism dollars. I've had to depend, at times, on food stamps, food pantries, and family to live. I'm not proud of it. Things are tough for me, but I find humor in my life, and I find a way to get by. I realize that no matter how hard my life is, there is someone out there somewhere who has it harder than I do right now.
By almost all of these media "metrics", I should be a Hillary voter. I freely admit I did vote for her for Senate. She had only token opposition at best, anyway. But I am, and have been for the last year, an Obama supporter. I can't be anything else. It's in my best interest to have Obama as President. I cannot support Hillary simply because she's a woman. It goes against everything I believe to support a woman simply because she's a woman. She had a chance to elevate this "sexism" debate, and chose instead to play the victim. This also goes against everything I believe about feminism. For people to scream sexism at any time is ridiculous. I've used this analogy before, and it's been debated here as well. If you run with the big dogs, you have to expect to get bitten. If you get bitten, you can't cry about it later, because you knew that it was a possibility. I also find it amusing that she and her husband are acting like the "common folk" and that people buy it. You wanna talk elitist? Please. The Clintons couldn't be more elite, in my humble view.
Yeah, I'm a liberal. But, sorry to burst Pat Buchanan's or Tucker Carlson's conservative bullshit bubbles here, I didn't vote Obama simply because he's black. I know he thinks that "white elitist liberals" are doing just that. In all honesty, Obama inspires me to work harder, be a better person. Hillary and the way she has allowed this campaign to be conducted makes my skin crawl and make me, at times, feel ashamed. Ashamed of my fellow Democrats and ashamed I ever supported her at all. It's not a good feeling. I don't like feeling like that about anything. I'm not ashamed of my life or my choices - why should I be made to feel ashamed by other women, or the media, or indeed other Democrats just because I don't support Hillary?
I'm not naive. I don't expect everyone to feel or think the way I do. I respect other people's opinions, even when they don't jive with mine. I can see both sides of an argument, and appreciate both. But I am one of those "white, working-class, low-income, non-college degree" voters, and I don't want to be lumped in with Hillary supporters. No offense to Hillary people meant. I just don't think she's what we as a nation need right now.