POLITICS ALERT!!

So, being the semi-professional political nerd that I am, I went over to CNN's website to look at the primary/caucus election results of this past Super Tuesday. I had noticed in previous similar elections this year that the number of people casting votes in the Democratic contests were nearly always greater than in the Republican contests.

So I went through & added up the number of votes cast for all the Democratic candidates & all those cast for the Republican candidates (including the non-committed or no preference votes) and here are a few little nuggets I found interesting:

Disclaimer: in the interest of full disclosure, some of the numbers from some of the states do not reflect 100% of the votes being counted, but nearly all of them showed 99% to 100% having been counted. For my purposes, these numbers are more than adequate.

• In the 17 states that held both a Democratic & a Republican primary or caucus (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah), there were an unofficial total of 22,964,136 votes cast on Feb. 5.
• Of the nearly 23 million votes cast, over 63% (14,506,808) were cast in the Democratic race; the remaining 37% (8,457,328) were cast in the Republican race. That's over 6 million more votes (6,049,480) that were cast in the Democratic races!
• Of the 17 states with elections in both major parties, the Democrats had more voters in 15 of the 17! Only in McCain's home state of Arizona & in Republican Beehive Heaven, Utah, did more Republicans cast votes! Even in typically "red" states like Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota & Tennessee, more people voted in the Democratic contests!
• If you take the total number of votes received in these 17 states by all the candidates regardless of party affiliation, the Republican with the most overall votes, John McCain, would have come in at 3rd place. Both Hillary Clinton (with the most number of overall votes) & Barack Obama (with the 2nd highest total) earned more than TWICE the number of votes than McCain did!
• Even John Edwards, who bowed out of the race before Super Tuesday, got more votes (401,000+) than Ron Paul (381,000+), who is still a candidate.

Unofficial Totals Of Votes Cast,
Selected States,
Per Candidate,
In Super Tuesday Contests, 2/5/2008

Clinton
7,122,201

Obama
6,957,328

McCain
3,422,762

Romney
2,875,270

Huckabee
1,570,375

Edwards
401,744

Paul
381,641

Giuliani
198,185

Uncommitted/Other/No Preference
34,630

So, it seems to me that there may be just a little more excitement (or, at least more voter interest) in the Democratic race. It may just be wishful thinking, but that seems to auger well for the donkeys...if they can take that interest & turn it into support in November! I really think that this is our race to lose...but you can't discount that. Democrats have had too much experience at losing their spine as well as their way. Still I hope...

Two Days & Counting

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!

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,

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

Obamamania?!?

So I've been torn for a while over the plethora (you like that word?!?!) of choices we of the Democratic persuasion have where our presidential candidates are concerned.

Don't tell anyone, but, SOMETIMES, I miss Bill Clinton. I miss the prosperity in which nearly everyone shared during his administration. I miss the optimism of that time. I miss not feeling like an enemy of my government simply because I don't want to give up my rights.

What I don't miss is the nearly daily stories of Monicagate & the he-says-she-says circus that the republicans insisted on showcasing during his administration. Sure, Bill Clinton was wrong for using the highest office in the land to further his sexual indiscretions, but just as wrong was the elephant party's insistence on using every lever of power at their disposal to focus government's attention on one man's prurient desires instead of making life better for the people there were sent to represent. The republican party's lust to get Bill, a man they saw as an illegitimate & undeserving occupant of the White House, was as blatant & obvious as Bill's lust to get...whatever it is he was trying to get.

I don't mean to air already-over-aired dirty laundry, but I wanted to make a point about Hillary. I would wager that I agree with 98.6% or more of Hillary's stances. She is a good woman (in my humble opinion) with a good heart & a desire to fix so much that Bill's successor has destroyed & spoiled for the rest of us. Her governmental experience & public life as First Lady have made her more-than-able to, as she claims in her ads, to hit the ground running. I have no doubt of that. I won't vote for her in the Florida primary not because I don't trust her or because she holds political points of view with which I vehemently disagree. I won't vote for her because I am ready for something new. Like so many other Americans, I want (I need) a fresh start & a fresh face. Hillary has a place in the public discourse & she has so much to contribute to bringing honor back to our country, but, on January 29th, I want to send a message to my party that we need a break with the past & that we have to look forward to a future that gives us all hope that the 7+ year long Bushmare is over. Hillary--as the head of our ticket--doesn't seem to represent that for me...at least not now.

Of the remaining candidates, I am most fired-up about Barack Obama & John Edwards. They are two truly fresh faces that give me a reason to stand up & cheer. They remind me why I've been a Democrat ever since I could vote. They are not perfect people, to be sure, and they disagree with me on civil marriage equality (but, then again, so do most of the other Dems in the race), but they also seem to me to be men who are willing to listen & open to reason. They both talk about the innate unfairness & inequality of the status quo. They both seem to have no interest in business as usual. Not many people I know do.

John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, to me, is simply a marvel! She refuses to allow her illness to keep her from saving the country she loves so much by helping the man she loves so much to get his message out. She knows that it's not really about her...or about John...but about her children & everyone else's children. She & John seek to give voice to those who either cannot speak for themselves or who are never heard at all in a town where only money talks. They are also good, decent people who make me proud of my party...something that has been a rarity for me for a while.

Then there's Barack. Barack Obama is about a year older than me. WOW! That's just amazing to me! Maybe it's just me, but when you think of the junior senator from Illinois, you can't help but think of potential! Barack is not gay, of course, but with his exposure to so many different kinds of people (his father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and they met at the University of Hawaii & Barack was raised for some time in Indonesia), I truly think he knows what being different is all about, because he has lived it. No need to explain to him how it is to be seen as an outsider. He's not (yet) an equal civil marriage rights advocate, but he also thinks that gay people still deserve the same rights as anyone else & that our relationships deserve equal protection. I wish it were different & I wish he would just cut to the chase & come around to my point of view. It will happen one day, I know. Where GLBT equality is concerned, things just don't ever go as quickly as I think they should. A "no-brainer" to me may not be so to someone else...but at least Obama's (and John's & Hillary's & all the other Democrats') heart is not closed to changing at some point. Call me an optimist...

Like John Edwards, Barack represents for me, a fresh face. You obviously also cannot escape the fact that it is also a black face. The way I see it, most of us are craving so badly anyone who is most UNLIKE our current crop of "leaders". The difference between George DUBYA Bush and Barack Obama goes WAY beyond skin color. They are also people with two different life paths & life views. Dubya came from a life of privilege where his Mom & Dad were always there to bail him out (probably quite literally). Barack's Mom & Dad divorced & he lived with his mom in Hawaii & Indonesia. When it came time to find a career, Dubya's parents bailed him out of a bad oil deal & then helped their son to purchase part of the Texas Rangers baseball team & then later sell it for 24 times what he had invested. After graduating from Harvard, Barack went to work for a legal firm that specialized in civil rights legislation. The difference is like night & day...in so many ways!

Barack Obama's constant mantra of change & his dedication to doing what is right for ALL OF US & not just for those of us fortunate to be able to buy his ear speaks to more than just people like me. Like so many rats abandoning a sinking ship of state, republicans who have finally opened their eyes & their nostrils & have begun to catch a whiff of the poisonous brew of Dubya's willful incompetence & drunken cowboy attitude are slowly but surely shifting allegiances. The British internet newspaper, Times Online, for example, reported last year that,

"Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum $2,000 to the president’s reelection campaign and gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat newcomer appealing."

I also found a Harris poll reported that, nationwide, political Independents say they would consider voting for Obama over Clinton by 37% to 29%. Twice as many Republicans said they would consider voting for Obama as would consider voting for Clinton (14% vs 7%). That tells me that people of every political stripe are at least willing to listen to what he has to say. Call me Pollyanna, but it seems that Americans may be ready to ignore the labels & discard their pre-conceived notions to support a man who is what he seems to be: a man who dares to hope for better & who is willing to fight for it...and for us.

That's where my heart & my mind stand right now...as I write this. Hillary Clinton & John Edwards (& Bill Richardson & Dennis Kucinich & Mike Gravel) are not anathema to me. They are not my enemies. I would/will vote for any one of them in the general election, if they get my party's nomination. Except for John Edwards & Barack Obama, however, I have to wonder if my potential presidential vote in 2008 will just be anti-the-republican-candidate instead of pro-the-Democratic candidate. It would be so nice to vote my hope instead what has been left to me, lo these many years: voting out of sheer frustration.

If our country is fortunate enough to be presented with the chance to vote for either John Edwards or Barack Obama, I know that my vote will be made with a weariness for the way things are now & a longing for the promise of blessed change...not just change in office holders, but a national change of heart!