His attitude. His selection of ties. The way he swatted his wife on the butt as she left the platform during is nomination declaration speech. The fact that he’s a lawyer. His age. All sorts of stuff. Some of it might be pretty damn mundane, but it’s the same stuff lots of people choose their candidate with. Including Obama supporters.
And that’s the point. When the OP says:
he changes the entire thread from a legitimate question/debate to yet just another thread taking pot shots at Hillary supporters.
Not Hillary supporters. Hillary supporters who switch to McCain rather than vote for Obama (who has a platform far more like Hillary’s than McCain’s). That subset is a very distinct and separate group- kind of like the difference in saying “low income people” and “low income people who do drugs”. People who were against the war when Hillary was the potential nominee but would rather see Americans get killed in Iraq for five more years than vote for Obama because he slapped his wife’s butt or doesn’t wear a flag pin have some ‘xplainin’ to do before I’ll consider them non lunatics. (I wonder, if he’d pinned a flag pin on her butt would it have won them over?)
Many have legitimate reasons (e.g. they are moderates who wanted to see a woman president, and now that only men are left, they prefer McCain), but many are hysterical harpies who are whipping themselves into a frenzy.
Check the comments on the blog of Clinton’s website. After reading those comments, you can now see how a mob can whip itself into a hysterical frenzy.
"NOBAMA!!!
NO EXCEPTIONS!!!
NO WAY!!!
NEVER MEANS NEVER!!!"
It’s like he ate live babies or something.
I like the illogical “arguments” some of them use. Something like:
“I was with Hillary because she was the only one who could beat McCain.
Now that she is out, I’ll vote for McCain.”
If McCain is not that bad (since you will vote for him), then the reason cited for preferring Clinton over Obama is nonsense.
I can’t for the life of me understand the “I’m a woman/Hillary’s a woman… I owe it to her!” I understand the blacks who vote for Obama better, though
1- Far more blacks vote for Dems than Reps in all presidential elections
2- Blacks are a race and not a gender and as such have a longer history of systemic and deliberate oppression
3- Even then, I still think that if they believe Hillary or McCain represents their views better then that’s who they should go with.
I’ll say something I probably shouldn’t, but I don’t really understand how Obama being elected really helps black people or how Hillary being elected really helps women. They both got to where they are because they’re intelligent, well educated, ambitious, well informed, and worked hard, not because of some demographic lottery.
Personally if the candidates were my brother-in-law, who I’ve known for 30 years and who I like and respect as a person but never agree with on politics (he’s very pro-war/anti-intellectual/fat wallet voting/religious right) and a half-Cuban/half-Apache Mormon woman who I’ve nothing in common with on a personal level but who is anti-war and who I think will do more to fix the economy and the other very real and bigger-than-usual crises, then I’ll still have affection for my brother-in-law but when I get in the booth I’m pulling the tab next to Brighamina Morning Star y Gutierrez, because I’m electing her to do a job and not to fit in at my July 4 party or in my favorite club. It would justnever occur to me to support a candidate solely because he’s openly gay (so long as the other candidate was pro gay rights) or because of any other thing we have in common other than political beliefs.
OTOH, I hope Obama courts the hell out of every demographic out there and will be glad for any support he gets and for whatever reason he gets it as I honestly feel he’s the best person for the job in the most important election we’ve seen in many many years.
Personally, I find Obama to be far less prone to pandering than any major party candidate since my hazy elementary school recollections of Walter Mondale. Not that he doesn’t pander - it’s just that he appears more likely to rely on intellectual arguments rather than reading from the Democrat’s Presidential Election Playbook. Even more than Al Gore.
If you’re the type of person who likes their Presidential politics to come in easily digested bite-sized chunks, then I can see how either McCain or Clinton could be more palatable.
For instance, here are the capsule summaries from each candidate’s web sites for a single issue:
Obama’s position statement is longer than the other two combined.
Granted, those are just the summaries, but how many people are actually going to bother to click on the “Read More” links and really dig in? A lot people like soundbites, and Obama doesn’t lend himself to soundbites as well as the other two.
They have already seen it and currently hold a more favorable opinion on Obama because of it. With some work I think they will probably come to my side by November.
I think a lot more people are in the same boat as my parents, in that they know where McCain and Clinton stand on issues but aren’t too sure they can trust Obama, since they don’t know too much about him. I can’t fault this line of logic with people who aren’t too interested in politics and don’t see a lot of honest politicians.
The answer to that would be to find out more about the man, which is what I think people will start doing between now and election day.
Revenge (for everything perceived as Nasty Vile Things Done To Hillary by anyone, not just Obama*.
Sexism (A man brought down Hillary; therefore he must pay).
The Cult of Hillary (if Obama wins in November, Hillary’s chances of becoming President decrease dramatically. If McCain wins, she’s still got a decent shot. The issues pale before the necessity of putting Hillary in the Oval Office). Of course, the allegedly terrible things done to Hillary can virtually all be ascribed to pundits, bloggers, cartoonists, Internet posters, Democratic leaders and the voters*. In the view of the Hillerati, however, Obama gets the ultimate blame.
Gloating, name calling and insults are not the way to mend fences with the other half of the party. It’s bound to piss off a few folks- who, I admit will more likely stay home than vote for McCain.
But in swing states like Fla (where Hillary is very popular), all it tales is about 1/10 of 1% of the vote to push *all *that states electors to the other party.
Look, dudes- it looks like your man won. Be as gracious as your candidate. Reach out and mend some fences or Obama will go down in history as the first black man to lose the Presidential election.
So Hillary people are going to vote McCain because Obama supporters won’t be nice to them? Health care and national security be damned, an Obama supporter called me stupid so I’m voting for McCain?
If this is your characterization of Hillary supporters then I’m sorry but they are no better than a bunch of epileptic donkeys.
You’re right. They will. Obama works very methodically. His patience and temperament lend themselves well to things like this. When the Hillary Show finally ends, he will be able to take the spotlight and show people like your parents why he’s the best choice for America.
Careful, some of us are related to epileptic monkeys. Anger and hatred are quite high and it is the job of one person to try and quell that anger. She is speaking this weekend and I [as an Obama supporter] want to hear what she has to say. Hopefully, she will be uniting.
BTW - Last night Obama and Hillary slipped away all cloak and dagger like to have a secret meeting…
Actually, I think it’s Obama’s job to try to win over those people. I don’t think either candidate’s supporters are mindless sheep who will just go where their leader directs them, and from reading Hillary’s website, many of them have legitimate concerns about Obama and believe that McCain would be an acceptable choice. Those people need to be won over, and it won’t be done by insults and name-calling.
I agree, and I kind of assumed Obama would be trying to win them over above and beyond what Hillary can do. That is his job right now. But one thing that is really chapping my ass right now is that Clinton said during the primaries that McCain would be better suited than Obama for President, [or something to that effect] Now it’s coming back to haunt the democratic party:
Underlining mine, that is the product of Clinton making a grievous gaffe saying a republican would be better than a democrat. Now McCain is jumping on her words to try and bring those disillusioned folks to his side. And you know what, he will succeed with a good number of them. I’m sorry, but saying niceties about Clinton right now is not easy to do. So I’ll respect good old mom and if I don’t have anything nice to say…I’ll say it in the pit.
On the other side are the folks with a pathological hatred or Hillary Clinton. People vote for the damnedest reasons, how ever you spell it. I recall a fellow employee who voted Republican instead of Democratic because he thought the Democratic candidate couldn’t win.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for the skinny, Dumbo eared smart alec because he will end the war and the wealthy tax cuts.
I suspect there’s an unsettlingly high number of people who take the “racehorse” metaphor literally when it comes time to vote. Are there people who taunt each other about it at the office the next morning, like the day after the Superbowl?
My sister feels the same way. She cannot articulate any reason why this is so, but believes it to be gospel. I remind her that she voted for Bush, took the Bush-provided-propaganda lines (fight them overseas rather than at home) in one blind gulp, and has little by way of political clout or decision-making, but that’s HER OPINION, and you cannot argue with it.
That second sentence helps explain the first. There have been many, many blacks and women before who didn’t get that far because none had previously. The boundaries of “The country just isn’t ready for …” had to get pushed back to this point by their predecessors’ efforts for them to accomplish this, and now they themselves have (almost) completed eliminating that objection/hesitation for good.
Now, to address your OP question, which I hope you’ve come to regret slightly already, there are many voters who reasonably or not do not put much value on policies and issues, seeing them as transitory and generally so much campaign bullshit anyway. Instead, they put their trust in individuals and what they perceive their character to be, trusting that they will act on whatever the issues do turn out to be in accordance with it. It is certainly as possible to consider McCain to be more mature and experienced than Obama without being racist as it is to consider Obama to have better judgment than Clinton without being misogynist.
And there are also single-issue voters, who may agree more with Obama on almost everything else but for whom the one single issue they don’t is the one that matters far more than any other. They can prefer McCain’s approach to fighting Islamist terrorism by military means without being anti-Muslim bigots, too.
For either type of voter to reach that conclusion on that basis doesn’t make them right or wrong any more than it is for you to reach yours on the basis you do.
An interesting point, but I can’t see anyone placing character over the lives and treasure that would be lost in further war. Surely character would determine the decisions that would be made. I cannot see anyone of character continuing the war or the wealthy tax cuts, for example.
Anger and hatred are quite high and it is the job of one person to try and quell that anger. She is speaking this weekend and I [as an Obama supporter] want to hear what she has to say. Hopefully, she will be uniting.