Backin' yer peeps

In this race for the Democratic nomination for President, I can respect that people feel strongly one way or the other about each candidate. I, obviously, strongly support Obama, but I can also understand where someone would strongly support Hillary. I can also understand why women would largely support Hillary in what is still a largely male dominated society.

What I have a hard time understanding is when Clinton backers bring electability into the equation. It seems to me that someone who is starting from a point at which 48% of the electorate disapproves of them that there isn't much room for that candidate to win over independents, who will obviously make up the decisive block of voters in the General Election. As much as the religious right segment of the Republican party may be slow to get behind McCain, there's no way they end up defecting to the Dems, and they're not likely to abstain from voting if the key issues they are concerned with are at risk of being undermined by whichever Democrat is nominated.

If that key block of voters, the independents, is so vital, and the Obama campaign has been consistently doing better with the independent voter than has the Clinton campaign, then it would seem to me that the electability argument when made in support of Clinton is extremely flawed.

Now I'm not saying that electability should be the key factor in deciding who to vote for--in fact, I'd prefer that it not factor in at all, as everyone should be voting for the candidate who they actually believe would be the best President, and electability in the eyes of the Democratic voters brought them to John Kerry, and we all know how that worked out--but for those making this argument, please take a step back.

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In an unrelated note, I have still yet to vote in a Presidential Primary, Caucus, or General Election and have the candidate I supported win said race. Obama won more delegates in Texas, and he did win the Caucus while losing the Primary, so I guess that's the kind of victory that you could only have in the Democratic Party these days, but I managed to vote for McCain in the 2000 Republican Caucus in Minnesota only to have him lose to Alan Keyes (seriously???) and George Bush, Al Gore in the General Election only to have him lose to the Supreme Court, Kerry in the General Election in 2004, and now Obama. Why do I even try?

Does any Canadian want to marry me so I can get citizenship?