My mother gives me good news about Obama...

My mother is one of the most conservative people I know. She is a thinking conservative, though, and she never really warmed to the neocons. She sometimes held her nose when she voted (not always R, but never D), and she was never terribly crazy about the more radical conservative reforms such as deregulations that hurt the common folks, and increasing tax loopholes for the rich.

She and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we talk about politics all of the time. We are continuously talking on the phone about current events, and no opinion is spared. Right or wrong, she is my metric for gauging a thoughtful conservative.

As I recall, over the years we haven't disagreed about that much. Our differences are usually about who is responsible for problems in the world. Sometimes we reach the same conclusions for different reasons – for example, she disdains the government imposing social regulation, so while she personally leans in a pro-life direction, she strongly supports Roe vs. Wade. We agreed completely on the Iraq war, though. We had many long conversations about the arguments that were brought forward to justify the invasion, and we were both certain that striking Iraq was a bad idea.

And she dislikes Fox News. Passionately.

While she's been interested in my ideas about Obama -- I've written several letters to public officials, and she’s been my sounding board for most of them -- she's always been tepid about him. She never gave me a reason, but I wasn't too surprised. She is a principled conservative, so I didn't press for her personal evaluation.

This morning, though, she abruptly told me that her objection to Obama had been that he was so young. She now thought that his age didn't matter, and it was his judgment that was important. She told me that she will probably vote for Obama in the general election if he is nominated. She thinks that he is the best of the lot.

This is my litmus test, folks. Now, after Obama has been dragged through the mud and framed in every voter 'deal breaker' that Clinton campaign could muster against him, my mother decides that he is the one we need to be president.

His age no longer matters to her -- she likes him because of his good judgment. This, coming from a woman who in her seventh decade has never before voted for ‘a liberal’.

Today, I am hopeful.