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"A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality." -- Yoko Ono
"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
Feb
4
Super Tuesday
Filed Under 2008 election, Democrats, politics | Posted by Cara |
As a large number of you probably know, tomorrow February 5th is “Super Tuesday” — the day on which the citizens of more than 20 different states vote for their presidential candidate of choice in the primaries.
I’ll be one of those voters; I’m sure that a lot of you will be, too.
As many other bloggers have been promoting, there is a hotline to call if you or someone else experiences trouble voting. If you witness anything that could possibly constitute voter disenfranchisement, on either side of the political fence, call 866-OUR-VOTE. The Democrats have their own hotline and a list of rights that all voters should know.
As I’ve expressed before, I’m eager to get the primaries over and done with. It would be really nice if, after tomorrow, we could have a nominee decided (though I’m not certain that this will be the case). I just want to come to terms with whoever the nominee is, latch on and find a way to become enthusiastic.
I’ve decided that I will be voting for Obama. It’s still more likely that Clinton will take it, but by no means certain. In the end, I will be satisfied with whoever wins. I think that Clinton is stronger on health care. I think that Obama is stronger on the war, in terms of personality/likability/campaigning, and perhaps on immigration and civil liberties. I appreciate his background as a community organizer. I also think that while he has by no means run a clean campaign (and has disappointed me numberous times on that front), he has managed to maintain a higher degree of decorum. And on most other issues that matter to me — poverty, reproductive rights, the environment — I haven’t found a huge difference between the two.
If you care to share, what’s your take? Who will you be voting for? Do you think that Clinton has it all wrapped up or that Obama still has a good chance of pulling through? Who do you think has the better chance of beating McCain (who will almost certainly be the GOP nominee)? And are you just as happy as I am to see this hellishly long primary season coming to an end?
Popularity: 12% [?]
Comments
19 Comments so far
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"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less." -- Susan B. Anthony
I hope that this will make you feel better Cara: 1994 Rock & Roll Hall of Famers The Grateful Dead will perform for the Obama campaign tonight.
Haha! I’m not a Dead fan, but that is pretty cool :)
there isn’t a lot of difference…but it was the stronger health care that won it for me…but i will also be fine w/ whoever wins…but i will be casting mine for clinton.
but i have to admit the grateful dead thing is pretty cool
I’m all for Clinton, and I feel so alone in my corner of the blogosphere with my vote. I saw her this afternoon in MA, and will be posting pics at some point.
I don’t think I’ll be voting. Personality-wise I like them both, issues-wise I think I like Clinton a bit better, electability-wise I think Obama has a slight advantage (especially if McCain wins the Republican nomination), and overall I’d be fairly happy with either. Besides, Ohio’s primary isn’t for a month, so I think my vote would make even less of a difference than votes usually do. (I consider it a civic duty to vote in the actual election no matter how pointless it seems, but primaries are different.)
I’m completely on the fence. We have Clinton saying that non-citizens - including those here legally - should be deported immediately, without due process, if they are arrested. Not convicted, arrested, when you are supposed to be presumed innocent. Last time I looked, the US Constitution gives everybody on US soil the right to a trial.
But, then again, we have Obama pandering to the right wing, calling Reagan a hero and having a rank homophobe tour with him.
Oy.
Balancing all that is the fact that we will, for the first time in history, have someone other than a white male as the Dem nominee, and I think better than a 50/50 chance as president, and that in of itself is pretty damned important.
And either Clinton or Obama is miles beyond the craptastic Rethuglicans.
Well, I don’t think that he called Regan a hero, though he was more complimentary than I would have liked (my hatred of Regan has no limits, including those of taste). And in terms of pandering to the right, I think that Clinton is just as bad (like the immigration stuff!).
The homophobe stuff is totally true, though. And I had forgotten about it for the moment. Thanks a LOT Rachel :P
I saw her on a town hall tonight, and she didn’t say anything like those widespread deportation rumors that I’m reading about in the blogosphere. I never knew their original sources. Yes, she talked about some deportations, and some fines, but it was standard fare that we can expect from mainstream Dems like her or Obama.
Also, I have to plug my fellow blogger’s NYC Weboy endorsement of Hillary Clinton. A major political junkie, he has articulated his support for her candidacy exceptionally well. Read it!
http://nycweboy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/the-hillary-cli.html
On thinking about this more, there is a reason for me to lean towards Clinton. She just seems more real, genuine, honest, to me. Maybe that’s not backed up by facts, I don’t know. And I do disagree with many of her policies, and some of them do make me spitting mad. But still, when someone has the humanity to shed a tear when introduced by her mentor, or to beam when her daughter arrives at a campaign event, I respond positively to that (and I would also if the candidate was male). Perhaps I should be judging her solely on her policies, but I feel like an effective president *needs* to have some compassion for fellow USA-ians.
Obama feels like a plastic, manufactured image to me. He also feels like someone that the Rethuglicans can easily manipulate.
the USA has not elected a northern liberal (*) as President since 1960 and probably won’t for a long time - the votes needed to win the presidency include states where a “northern liberal” would be poison and the words “ACLU” seem to be treated the same as “NSDAP”.
(* - Clinton is not a northern liberal - she started out as a mid-west conservative (campaigned for Goldwater in ‘64), became a southern centrist when she married Bill and is now a moderate.)
Yeah, the problem with that, Paul, is that she is both seen as being from the North and being a Liberal. I doubt that the fact that neither of those are technically true is going to make a huge difference.
Ideologically, I align more completely with Obama. While I like Hillary, and I think she’d do a fine job, I am loath to throw my support that way on basic principal: depending on whether you count Reagan-Bush, we have had 20-28 years of the same two families in the oval office. The idea that tacking on another 4-8 years to that number is likely to produce significant change just doesn’t sit well with me.
Happy Caucusing!
RachelPhilPa - I agree!!
For the record (for Rachel, Redstar and anyone else who is reading), I like both Obama and Clinton on a personal level. When I say that Obama has a leg up on Clinton in terms of personality, I don’t mean that she has a bad one, just that Obama is slightly more charasmatic. They both strike me as genuine on a personal level, and I’d be happy to have lunch/a drink/coffee with either of them. I don’t find Obama to be manufactured . . . at least not any more than I find any other politician on this planet to be manufactured. I mean, he’s hardly Mitt Romney! And I hate to say it, but when it comes to being manipulated by Republicans, I think that Clinton has a stronger track record there. Maybe just because she has been in Congress longer. But still.
But yeah, I’m not really in the mood for a political argument. Like I’ve said, I prefer Obama but Clinton will do just fine for me if it comes down to that. I’ll be a little disappointed, but okay. My heart just isn’t in the battle :)
In any case, I am surprised about the high levels of support for Clinton here. It wasn’t what I expected . . . shows what I know.
I mean, he’s hardly Mitt Romney!
So, so true. Just looking at Romney’s name (or that of any other Rethuglican candidate) turns my stomach.
I’ll be voting for Clinton, but I don’t think that she or Obama has the primary wrapped up. It’s difficult to say, because my immediate acquaintances are pretty evenly split and beyond that, most of the people who I know are voting are Obama supporters.
As for beating McCain, it terrifies me that the Democrats will lose this election, too, so no matter who wins the their nomination, I’m going to volunteer for them.
I’m going to be so glad when Super Tuesday is over. I can’t believe how long the campaigns have been running, and frankly, I hate it when I think about the time the candidates have spent on the road when they should have been in the Senate or Congress or doing their day jobs.
Here, here, Pizza Diavola! I’m with you on all of those counts. It’s sometimes hard to remember that the candidates still have day jobs.
Since I’ve already voted on January 26 (and the next election for me to vote in is the Democratic Senatorial Primary to challenge Lindsey Graham), I’ll say this: I agree with RachelPhilPa. A vote for a Republican is a vote for more of the same.