So, it seems that Barack Obama has won big in South Carolina! Now it's "Good-bye, Palmetto State" & "Hello, Sunshine State!"
In case I haven't told you, I am really excited to get to vote for Barack on Tuesday. ;-) He is such an inspiration & he gives me hope that things can be different...things just NEED so desperately to be different!
In case I haven't told you, I am really excited to get to vote for Barack on Tuesday. ;-) He is such an inspiration & he gives me hope that things can be different...things just NEED so desperately to be different!
As if I needed another reason to vote for Barack, I read an Op-Ed piece today on the New York Times (link at the bottom of this post) website by President Kennedy's only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who is endorsing Senator Obama for president. The title of the article (A President Like My Father) sums it all up (at least for me) & the first paragraph she writes explains it all so well:
Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.
As I have said before, this vote I will make for Barack is NOT an anti-Hillary or an anti-John Edwards or anti-anyone (except maybe anti-Dubya) vote because any of the current candidates from the Democratic Party who wins the nomination is going to get my vote in November. For the first time in too long, mine will be a pro-hope vote. It's true that Senator Obama may not be one of the old lions of the Senate, and he may not have all the connections that a lot of old politicos do in Washington, but I personally don't think being a part of the "good-old-boys" network is necessarily a reason to vote for someone you hope will change & shake things up in our country. We need to challenge the "conventional wisdom," not give in to it!
On a nearly-similar issue, I was glancing through CNN's website (as I am apt to do when I first thing in the morning in place of reading the newspaper), I read about Barack's huge win in South Carolina & I noticed that CNN had exit polling info with voter characteristics for each state that has held caucuses or primaries so far. Of course, my mind started racing thinking about who the "typical Democratic voter" is as compared to the "typical Republican voter," and then I started thinking about how those numbers looked for each state, so I pulled out the old Excel spreadsheet (I LOVE ME SOME MICROSOFT EXCEL...I know it's a weird thing to love, but I'm wierd, so what ya gonna do???) & plugged in the numbers that I found on CNN's website & I came up with this:
So, according to CNN's polling numbers, the average Democratic voter, so far in the primaries & caucuses that have taken place tends to be a younger female whereas the typical Republican primary voter tends to be an older male. It also appears that the older male Republican primary voter tends to earn more than the younger female Democratic primary voter. I know, you're surprised by that, right?!?! :-/
What really strikes me by this is not only does the much-vaunted "gender gap" exist (at least where the primaries/caucuses is concerned), but there also appears to be an "age gap". In every state that has held both parties' primaries/caucuses, a greater percentage of the voters on the Democratic side are under the age of 30 as compared to the Republicans! The opposite is true for those 65 and over: a greater percentage of Republican primary voters is elderly as compared to the Democrats. So it seems that the old guard is represented mostly by the "Grand" Old Party & the up-and-comers are tending to be more Democratic. That doesn't hurt my feelings any, let me tell you.
Anyway, 2 days & counting 'til I get to vote for a man about whom JFK's daughter wrote,
On a nearly-similar issue, I was glancing through CNN's website (as I am apt to do when I first thing in the morning in place of reading the newspaper), I read about Barack's huge win in South Carolina & I noticed that CNN had exit polling info with voter characteristics for each state that has held caucuses or primaries so far. Of course, my mind started racing thinking about who the "typical Democratic voter" is as compared to the "typical Republican voter," and then I started thinking about how those numbers looked for each state, so I pulled out the old Excel spreadsheet (I LOVE ME SOME MICROSOFT EXCEL...I know it's a weird thing to love, but I'm wierd, so what ya gonna do???) & plugged in the numbers that I found on CNN's website & I came up with this:
So, according to CNN's polling numbers, the average Democratic voter, so far in the primaries & caucuses that have taken place tends to be a younger female whereas the typical Republican primary voter tends to be an older male. It also appears that the older male Republican primary voter tends to earn more than the younger female Democratic primary voter. I know, you're surprised by that, right?!?! :-/
What really strikes me by this is not only does the much-vaunted "gender gap" exist (at least where the primaries/caucuses is concerned), but there also appears to be an "age gap". In every state that has held both parties' primaries/caucuses, a greater percentage of the voters on the Democratic side are under the age of 30 as compared to the Republicans! The opposite is true for those 65 and over: a greater percentage of Republican primary voters is elderly as compared to the Democrats. So it seems that the old guard is represented mostly by the "Grand" Old Party & the up-and-comers are tending to be more Democratic. That doesn't hurt my feelings any, let me tell you.
Anyway, 2 days & counting 'til I get to vote for a man about whom JFK's daughter wrote,
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.It's about time.
New York Times article - link=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27kennedy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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