Okay, so John Edwards was my first choice. Bwaaa. Boo hoo. But I’m moving on. I’m a 50-year-old female who’d love to send a woman to the White House. I’ve seen Hillary in person. I like her. But at the caucuses in Minnesota on Tuesday, I’ll be voting for Obama. Here are my five reasons why.
1) Policy-wise, there’s actually not a huge difference between Barak and Hillary. It’s like she says po-tay-toe, he says po-tat-to. To-may-to. To-ma-to, no, we don’t need to call the whole thing off, they’d both make fine presidents. However….
2) Charisma matters. In the past, we Dems have chosen candidates based on our grocery lists of issues and by deferring to the wisdom of our Serious Professionals—party insiders, donors and aging media pundits--who seem to anoint candidates based on who’s been waiting in line the longest and who they think is most “electable.”
It’s all very clubby and it usually ignores the whole charisma thing. Which is how Democrats got saddled with (long sigh) Michael Dukakis, Fritz Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry, all of whom ran the standard, top-down, consultant-heavy, canned, uninspiring campaigns.
This year, when it comes to chemistry, i.e. that irrational and mysterious ability to connect and inspire voters, Barak has it all over Hillary. Go to YouTube.com and compare the speech Obama made after winning South Carolina with Hillary’s speech after winning Florida. Obama is giving a soaring, secular equivalent of an altar call, asking people to transform their lives and their country. Hillary is giving a list of tasks to get started on. Which one do you think is more inspiring?
3) The Democratic base will vote for the nominee no matter what. So the question is.......who can reach beyond the base and bring in the most new voters?
No contest---it’s Obama, especially when it comes to younger voters, who are the future of the Democratic party. According to CNN’s exit polls in South Carolina, Obama got 67 percent of 18-29 year-old vote compared to Clinton’s 23 percent. Among voters between ages, 30-49, he took 61 percent. The only age group he lost was the over 65 crowd. Among those who attended church once a week, Obama got 58 percent of the vote compared to Clinton’s 27 percent. Even white evangelicals seem unusually open to Obama because---oh just cue up “Just As I Am” and be done with it—these people love altar calls.
Hillary will give us competence, no doubt. But Obama could also give us a movement and we’ll need one in order to turn this country around. According to studies, if people vote for a party in two or three elective cycles, they tend to stick with it. We’re going to need a whole lot of progressive voters for a long time.
Now it’s true that many older women find Hillary inspiring and the old girls (I’m peri-menopausal, so skip the protest comments) vote in droves. But we crones vote in droves no matter who’s on the ballot and we mostly vote Democratic.
4) After years of unity, the Republicans are falling apart. Plenty of conservatives and evangelicals—including Lord Vader James Dobson—absolutely hate John McCain. I don’t get their hostility, but hey, after years of hearing about “weak and divided Democrats,” watching the Repubs hurl crap at each other brings me wicked pleasure. The only thing that could unify this broken-down bunch is their decades-long, over-the-top hatred of Hillary, Hitlery or “Billery” as she’s known in their circles.
So why, in the name of all that is good and holy, would Democrats hand Republicans their only possible rallying point??
5) Finally, and I know this is petty, but I don’t think I can stomach yet another media narrative of St. John McCain, the Manly, Maverick Straight-Talking War Hero vs. That She-Devil in Pants-Suit, the Conniving Power-Mad Lady Macbeth and her out-of-control partner, The Clenis.Obama would at least force the press into a new story line.
I've already accepted that the media will revert to its full-blown (and I do mean blown) man-crush on McCain; I'm repeating the Serenity Prayer as I type. But an Obama candidacy would at least give us a different story line on the Democratic side. I have no illusions about what the Republican Slime Machine, assisted by the press, will do to Obama. It's going to be incredibly ugly. But then again, it always is. The Democrats could nominate Christ Himself and the Repubs would soon be foaming at the mouth, swiftboating the guy, demanding to cruci---oh, right, too late, already happened. Old story.
Anyhow that’s how I made my decision for Obama. Good luck with yours.