Annnnd ... I just took another poll, and it looks like my winning candidate is ... Mike Gravel, probably only because Kucinich is no longer a choice. Yeah, that's how I roll.
OK, another site has Obama matching me at 85 percent, tied (natch) with Kucinich, and followed by Hillary at 83 percent. In other words, too close to count.
[Edited to add: And the fucking USA Today poll has me with Kucinich first, Gravel second and McCain third. Perfect.]
Ugh. Rebecca Traister had an essay in Salon a couple of days before Super Tuesday that, well, it's like she has tapped into every single feeling I have had about this race. I had a hard time picking out the parts that most spoke to me, because, well, it all does, but here are some excerpts:
I think, every day, of what it would feel like to vote for Barack Obama. I can feel the pull of Obama-mania, how thrilling it would be to see the country come alive with excitement for a young person, someone with fresh ideas, a man beholden to few in Washington, a candidate who has lived around the world, who does not seem to take a cowboy approach to foreign policy, who has forsaken big business opportunities in order to address the problems of the working class. I think also that, in the United States, race (especially when combined with class) remains a more formidable barrier to professional, political and economic success than gender. Hillary Clinton may have a harder time getting elected than Obama because, frankly, Obama can be comfortably looked at as an exceptional black man, not as a harbinger of what's to come, whereas Hillary will stand in for all those pushy broads coming to take your jobs, college admissions letters and seats in Congress. If Hillary's success is less exceptional, does she deserve my vote as much as Barack?
. . .
And then I think of how, when I was 9, my dad took me into the voting booth so that I could pull the lever for the first female vice president, and how he told me that he hoped that in my lifetime I would have the opportunity to vote for a woman at the top of the ticket. And I think about the fact that this is it -- my chance to pull that lever for her, so that I can do it again come November.
. . .
There is shame in voting for Hillary Clinton, make no mistake -- pulling a lever for someone who voted for Iraq and proposed anti-flag-burning legislation provokes its own brand of self-loathing. When I think about doing the deed, I consider the fact that she's brilliant, that she's competent, that she knows her shit inside and out, that she's battle-tested, tough as nails, and that she wipes the floor with Obama in the debates. She provides a steel-solid track record, he a nimbus of vague hope.
. . .
But here is the honest part: Hillary Clinton is a woman. And so am I. And my president doesn't have to look like me, any more than she has to be a person I want to have a beer with, but I can't pretend that it doesn't mean something, something really important, that we've never had one who looked like me before.
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4 comments:
i feel like we're there, baby. don't you?
a WOMAN can be PRESIDENT.
and she would be if Obama-Rama-mania wasn't motivating the nation to take out its trash.
it is just poor timing. that's all. there will be others. we are not missing our chance.
or are we?
i'm still sort of waiting on my femessiah. the politician who not only knows her shit like hilz, but can inspire me and a whole flippin' nation.
don't settle for less than exceptional in your leaders with lady parts.
then again, don't listen to me.
i'm in love with barack obama.
As I've said before -- and as Traister says in her essay -- I still think that the first woman to be elected will have to be conservative -- I don't think the public can handle someone who is progressive *and* a woman, sad to say. So yeah, that woman will probably be a Republican, and I will be full of all sorts of conflicting feelings when that day comes.
I think I agree with basically everything that l-jo-te said, only she said it much more eloquently, of course.
No other politician, despite all their carefully calculated speeches and ads, has ever gotten me as excited or hopeful as Barack has, and like the essayist says, it will be exciting to go vote for him. It's always kind of fun to vote, but I can't really recall being excited about my choices. It's usually just "not Bush."
But now you've kind of thrown a wrench in my plans. I never really considered Hillary, woman or not, because I dislike her so, so much. I think she's fake and calculating and grating. If she won the nomination, yeah, I'd still vote for her in November and I'd want her to win.
But when Obama started making it look like he could really do this, and that we could actually allow ourselves to get the tiniest bit excited because this guy we actually liked, a politician of all people! might really make it, that feeling was too good to pass up. And I'm still probably going to vote for him, but I appreciate you posting this and at least giving me some food for thought.
Shit, dudes, I dunno. Hillary's gonna totally lose anyway, huh?
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