Thursday, May 22, 2008

The Rebound Vote

I was listening to exit poll results from Kentucky and Oregon; (I still don’t know how you conduct an exit poll in a state where everyone votes by mail, but I digress). A major topic for the talking heads was the breakdown of the women’s vote. In the middle of the conversation, it dawned on me. I know why women over 40 will not vote for Barack Obama. He’s the “Other Woman”.

I know at first it’s jarring to the psyche to think of him in that role, so I’ll try to be gentle.

Imagine you are a young liberal woman. You see Obama as a handsome, charming, exciting young man. You are strangely attracted to him. I don’t mean in a crudely sexual way, rather in a sweep me off my feet, vaguely romantic, way. Hillary is like your mother telling you that he’s bad for you. It’s no geat surprise that any self respecting young woman is going to ignore her mother and fall for the exciting guy.

Now imagine you are a middle aged to older Democratic woman. It’s probable you have been married, and if you haven’t been divorced, you certainly have many friends who have. You strongly identified with Hillary Clinton when the party chose her as their nominee two years ago. Everyone knew she was the one and it was all settled. Hillary and the party were going to sail off into the sunset together and it was going to be beautiful. And then HE shows up.

This young, gorgeous newcomer says “hello baby”, flashes a dazzling smile and before you can blink twice, the party dumps it’s middle aged fiancée at the alter and runs off with this charming piece of fluff. Maybe Hillary isn’t as young as she used to be, and maybe she has put a few extra pounds in her pants suit, but Hillary and the party were so GOOD together. He’s no good for the party. He’ll loose in the fall and THEN who’ll you come crawling back to?? Doesn’t the party understand ANYTHING about commitment???

Hillary is a good woman in a committed, long term relationship who after all these years of waiting, gets kicked to the curb at the last minute just because the party couldn’t keep it’s ballots in it’s pants the first time a younger, prettier face walks by. In their minds, women over 40 are Hillary Clinton and they can’t stand Obama because he is the other woman.

John McCain should send flowers. Rebound votes still count.

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