More Good Stuff on Voting for Obama -- or Not

Devilstower of Kos about the things that didn't affect his choice when he voted for Obama:

I didn't make my vote based on who I thought was "more electable." I thought that was a fool's game four years ago, and I think it's even more foolish this year. I'm picking for myself, not for you. Heck, I have a lot of political positions in common with most people on this community, and many of you would strongly disagree with how I cast my vote. If I can't figure out how you're going to vote, I'm not about to start puzzling what a truck driver in Portland, a single mother in Boise, or a middle manager in Cleveland is looking for in a president.

I didn't make my vote based on how I thought some other part of the world would react to a President Obama. I didn't consider whether some despot at the head of a failing state would think the new president too weak to thwart some scheme. I didn't ponder what they'd think in the cave. I didn't consider whether some faction of the populace in the Middle East, or China, or some other place look on black people as "weak" or "inferior." I didn't consider how Obama would get on with Putin or how he'd handle Chavez. You only have to look at George W. Bush and Tony Blair to know that predicting how world leaders will hit it off is tougher than lining up blind dates for your friends. Anyone making guesses about this is doing just that -- making guesses.

And above all, I didn't make my vote based on some assumption of racism or sexism on another part of the electorate. Not that I didn't have plenty of chances. At some point, it seemed like everyone I know brought up some variant of the Wilder Effect. They usually expressed it as something close to "I know what people tell the pollsters, but I'm really worried in November when it comes down to a woman/black man against a candidate like people have always known..." A relative put it a lot more bluntly in saying "It doesn't bother me that Obama slept with all those white women, but it'll bother other people."

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Labels: 2008 Election, 2008 Primaries, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, Politics

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