this morning, as i do on most mornings, i watched a little washington journal while putting off going to work. not surprisingly, the entire discussion i caught was about yesterday's "super tuesday jr." and its results, discussed between the host and dick polman of the philadelphia inquirer.
while i've been hearing the same junk on WJ for months now, this morning polman discussed the generation gap between clinton and obama supporters. to make a horrible generalization, everyone who holds an aarp card votes for clinton, and everyone who has seen at least 2 episodes of 90210 votes for obama. obviously there are many exceptions to that (myself included), but for the sake of the discussion, that's the deal.
polman went on to talk about how many young people & first time voters have gotten into politics due to obama, and how, if clinton somehow gets the nomination, they will be so disappointed and disillusioned that they may just sit out the general election. this is where my ears pricked up, and i got a little testy.
my biggest problem with "new voters" and people who just come in to politics is that usually they know next to nothing about american government. i'm no scholar, but i've read, watched and participated enough that i'd be willing to go up against an average example among my peers. could i take, say, fareed zakaria or my poli sci professor al tuchfarber from college? no way. but i know enough to inform myself on all candidates, and not to just blindly follow one because of a sudden surge in popularity.
it's like only supporting your sports team when they're winning. i know a thing or two about fair weather fans, because i'm from cleveland, and our sports teams always lose. there are the people who only care when they come out on top, and there are the people who care regardless. i challenge every fair weather voter to care whether you're up or down and not let one setback take away from your involvement.
the spur off of this biggest problem is that if all of those obama supporters decide to just sit out because "their" candidate isn't the nominee, the chances of mccain winning get better and better. (hello nixon victory in 1968!) ideologically, clinton and obama are not so vastly different that the switch from one to the other would be tough to take. the stem of the struggle in that switch is identity politics.
it will not be easy to go from one to the other instantaneously, but in an era of two party disillusionment, first timers & rookies need to know that if they sit this one out, mccain can win. i am not expecting all voters to support any democrat at any cost - but i do feel that for this country to get its act together and begin to undo the past eight years, we need clinton or obama in the white house.
i'm not going to lie - i will not be jumping for joy if obama is named the nominee in denver, but i also know that i would not sulk or complain that i didn't get what i wanted and forfeit my right to vote since i wouldn't be able to vote for my candidate. this behavior goes both ways - if every clinton supporter decides they just can't get behind obama, we are losing a huge part of the democratic base.
every cycle is like a yo-yo, and this one is no different. whoever the democratic nominee is, i will go to work campaigning. i just hope everyone else from my generation will too.
2 comments:
well said. i'm a hillary devotee but not at all anti-obama (just anti-hype), and i'll admit that once super tuesday was over, the amount of time ive been devoting to keeping up with the election has slimmed down some -- because the race is so tight & out of my hands & at this point i'm just gearing up for the post-primary phase, ready to support whichever candidate comes out on top. and i'm hoping hard like you that other people will have the same mindset. it'll be so incredibly disappointing if we end up with a country of sore losers sulking & watching the frickin "yes we can" video over and over on youtube or whatever. xx
agreed. you'd think that after 8 years of hell, we'd all be able to pull ourselves together and behave rationally. i think we've been under the tyranny of an ass-puppet for so long that even being able to choose anything and to have actual tangible hope that this election might not be fixed (knock wood) has made us a little bit crazy or power hungry or something. conversely, our generation might just have a large per-capita amount of whiny douchebags. your guess is as good as mine, but i agree with what you're saying completely and i hope we get our shit together when it matters.
Post a Comment