Obama Wins!
It turns out that Obama won the Democrats Abroad primary that I voted in ten days ago. He kicked Clinton’s butt by about a 2-1 margin. (Link courtesy of Kevin, where I confess I get nearly all my US election news these days.)
Obama Wins!
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6 responses
I’m curious – can you still vote in the US despite being an Australian citizen? I thought they didn’t allow Dual citizenship? (Rupert Murdoch for example)
Australia has allowed dual citizenship for some years now. The Supreme Court in the US struck down their laws restricting it more than twenty years ago. I have no idea what Murdoch’s situation is, but the rest of us had no problems getting dual citizenship. I’ve got two passports and I get to vote in both countries’ elections. (On the down side, you also have to file – but not necessarily pay – taxes in both locations.)
I’m curious for another reason – why Obama over Clinton? Most of my US friends (older women, mostly yellow dog democrats on fixed incomes) are having a hell of a job deciding, but they seem to be leaning toward Obama too. They say things like “I can’t believe that all these years I’ve longed to vote for woman and now I don’t think I will…”. I have the impression they don’t really trust Hilary. Also, I think they are looking at the need for generational change, and even though they admire Hilary they think she may be too old in her outlook.
Well, primarily because I took the test on the Electoral Compass and it told me that Obama was the candidate whose positions most aligned with my own. That’s pretty cut-and-dried.
But on an emotional level… Yeah, I know what your friends are talking about. I was just debating this with Sally and Emily at knitting the other night. They were coming at it from the perspective of having Mrs Thatcher as PM. While I’m all for having a female leader, I just don’t like Hilary anymore. In fact, even when I would’ve called myself a Hilary supporter it was more in response to the horrible misogynistic attacks she weathered as First Lady. I do think she’s smart and capable, and I think it sucks that her gender puts her in a Catch-22 situation. (If she plays the “man’s game,” as Thatcher did, she gets criticized for denying her femininity. And if she shows her femininity, then she gets accused of lack of credibility and strength. It’s a no-win situation.) But in spite of all that, I don’t trust her. In a horrible way, I think I lost some respect for her when she didn’t leave Bill. Obviously I’m not privy to their relationship and things are undoubtedly way more complicated than I realise, but I have to wonder why she would put up with the humiliation of being cuckolded on a national stage. Is it because she knew he was her one ticket to power? I know it’s not fair, but I can’t help but wonder.
It’s possible that that’s why she stuck with him. But I like to think that their relationship is very intellectually tight and that the affair, no matter how public, did little to injure the reasons why they got together and remain together. I feel that Hilary shows herself to be stronger by staying with him. Of course, politics being politics I’m sure she also knew she would need him for his political weight to further her career. If she’d left him politically she’d be over. As a woman I really wanted her to be President but I too suffer from memories of the Iron Lady with the claw for a hand and also Obama’s political stance is far closer to my own.
So if I could vote, I’d have to vote Obama. I just hope he doesn’t disappoint. I am so anxious about Rudd’s government. Is it naive to what the world to be a better place?
Thanks Kris. That’s about what they’re saying. Also, maybe the timing’s wrong. She’s not young, and far be it from me to make an ageist remark, but I know how tired I get just living a normal life. She’s about my age and she wants to run the free world? This world has become a very complicated place, and it takes so much energy just working out what really matters these days. Things change so fast. I think I’d be supporting the younger (and probably better) candidate too.