Hillary Clinton

Hillary did a wonderful job today as the keynote speaker at today's convention. However, I couldn't help but notice how much the focus has shifted from the message of "change" and "hope" to a message of "anything but Bush;" and of course his mirror image in McCain. This hardly seems like the time to be deflating the imagery evoked by the message being put forth. It seemed like the overwhelming majority of the speakers today focused on the dissimilarities between Obama and McCain, while injecting the rhetoric that has already been diffused into public discourse.

Although I am personally touched by the vast implications that are carried by the fact that a woman must throw all her support to an African American in order to defeat their rich white male counterpart, I am worried that this alone is not enough to inspire most Americans to vote Democrat this November (needless to say, the issues are my first and foremost inspiration). However, if the economy is not enough to influence voters with regards to the issues, what more can the democrats do when the polls say that republican politics of the last presidential election are by and large irrelevant in this election? And is addressing McCain as Bush's twin really enough to fix the recent Gallup poll numbers showing McCain up by 2 points?

The Carl Rove strategy is dead. Well, maybe it's not dead; but it certainly is not being employed and national numbers show that abortion and gay marriage are not as hot ticket issues as they were in the previous election. In fact, a recent poll conducted by ABC News/The Washington Post shows that about 54% of Americans in this country believe abortion should be legal in most cases. McCain's support of repealling of Roe v. Wade is certainly not going to help him out with republicans for choice and the evangelicals have certainly lost a great deal of the clout they had in '04 which would have been pivotal in steering public interest with regards to this issue.

The fact is, the economy is the most important issue in this election. It is common knowledge that the voters tend to vote with their pocketbooks, and they are clearly screaming democrat right now. With people continuing to lose their houses to foreclosures and the failure of Indymac acting as a harbinger of things to come, it seems ludicrous that McCain has jumped ahead in the numbers. There is, however, one possible explanation for these numbers, and it is probably one that no one really wants to admit to; that some voters are still just too uncomfortable voting for an African American president. With this in mind it is going to be interesting to note the reaction of Hillary supporters for McCain in the weeks to come. For obvious reasons, let's hope it doesn't come down to our reliance on the pocket book axiom to keep our dreams of change alive.