Barack from vacation!

I'm back, but posting is still going to be fairly light here, at least for the next 6 weeks, which are shaping up to be the busiest of my life so far.

Since I've pretty much posted nothing whatsoever about the presidential election, which is obviously the big news item right now, I thought I'd take a moment to say what I think of the candidates.

The basic issue here is that pretty much any Democrat is far and away better than pretty much any Republican. If you've been paying attention to current affairs for the last seven years, you shouldn't need extra convincing. But this is important, because it implies that 1) we should think hard about the electability of the Democrats, and 2) we shouldn't let ourselves fall into ideological puritanism or partisan infighting.

The first point is less important to me, because I think (as I've stated before) that both Clinton and Obama are very electable. Obama is more charismatic, Hillary is a more practiced politician.

It's the second point that worries me the most. I've noticed that a lot of my fellow liberals have a strong revulsion to Hillary Clinton, supposedly because she represents the Washington establishment and a strategy of triangulation that basically hands victories to Republicans. I think this has a grain of truth - I don't believe Hillary has as strong deep liberal convictions as Obama or Edwards. But I think she's a weather vane, and the wind is blowing in a liberal direction. What matters is which policies a leader implements, not why.

But I also have a nagging feeling that a lot of the vitriol I encounter directed at Hillary from some liberals has nothing to do with her politics, and is just sexism in disguise. I don't want to believe that hunch, but when I read things like this by-now-famous Gloria Steinem column, I just can't help but agree. I don't think it's that liberal men dislike or disrespect women per se - it's more like they look at a woman candidate and instinctively think "she could never get elected," and then start to hate her for her projected electoral loss. And I think that lots of liberal women realize that this is, in fact, the nature of the anti-Hillary animus, and I think that's why she pulled off her surprise victory in New Hampshire.

So yeah, I think Hillary gets a bum rap because she's a chick. But that said, Obama is still my favorite candidate. Not because of his racial pedigree - as I've often said, I think that counts for zilch in the eyes of non-Americans - but because he seems the most receptive to new ideas. And new ideas are what we badly need in this country, because we seem to keep fighting the same battles and limiting ourselves to the same divisive pairs of alternatives. I really do see Obama as someone who can bring Americans together to a degree that none of the other Democrats - and certainly none of the Republicans - can.

Unfortunately, due to ridicuouls intraparty bickering, Obama is not on the Michigan primary ballot, and Michigan's primary doesn't even count this year. So although I won't be able to vote for Obama, I recommend that everyone else do so. But like I said, I also think Hillary is just fine, and I won't be one bit sad if she wins the nomination. We've all got to be focused on Job #1, which is kicking the corrupt out-of-touch incompetent Republican party out of power until it learns how to better serve America's interests.