I love to follow politics. I'm not all that smart at it, and don't have the memory for the historical politics that my husband has, but I do really love to follow the current politics. This year has been exceptional for people like me. There's a convergence of some truly amazing things happening this year and I find it very exciting.
But it's not all excitement. At times, it forces you to take a hard look at who we are as a country and what I see isn't always palatable. Case in point last week I was reading about some pre SC primary polling that showed an enormous amount of blacks intended to vote for Obama, and a similarly skewed percentage of whites intended to vote for Clinton or Edwards. I was disheartened. Just days past our country's observance of the great MLK, I was saddened to hear this data and realize that the divide between the races is still deep. It angered me. When will people realize that we are all human, and the color of our skin matters not? We all matter. We all have gifts to offer. Will we ever have equality? I have always hoped so and worked towards that end, but after seeing these polling numbers I began to question whether we'd ever see it, and felt certain I'd never see it in my lifetime.
Today, however, I discovered there is hope, and it's hiding deep within the exit polling numbers I read this weekend at http://election.cbsnews.com/campaign2008/exitPoll.shtml?state=SC&race=P&jurisdiction=0&party=D. If you dig way down into the "Age by Race" grid you'll see it. It's there. Hope lives. What I see there is that the younger generation is more color blind than the older ones. 52% of the non-black 18-29 year olds voted for Obama! Compare that with 15% over 60 yrs old who voted for Obama, and even in my generation a measly 25% voted for Obama.
Now, I'm not saying that I'm an Obama fan - I don't really know who I will caucus for. But, as I told my husband the other day, it doesn't really matter to me now that my candidate Richardson is out of the race, I'll vote for whoever the democrat nominee turns out to be. But I am so heartened to see that maybe the younger generation, my kids' generation, will finally make some changes in this country. There is hope!
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Obama's speech after the SC primary sealed the deal for me. His speech moved me. The other candidates just don't seem to convince me that they really do much more than wet their finger and hold it up to see which way the wind is blowing.
Let's face it, other than the power of veto, the President does not really have that much power. But I'll be happy if we have one that has an optimistic vision for the future and can help us all feel united as a country again.
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