Just because they didn't articulate their feelings well doesn't mean Obama appeals to them only for flimsy reasons. I think what he really has is something that's hard to define: charisma. With charismatic people you get the feeling they are outside the norm and are really going to make a difference. Not the same old same old. Sure, wanting to see a black president is fine, but I don't think that's all there is to it. He has not been running as a "black candidate," although of course it's hard to avoid the subject with race being as volatile as it is in this country.


>My daughter went to a rally for teens over the weekend. (There are a LOT of teens who will be 18 come election time here) A survey was done of those present, and in every case, they were voting for Obama only because he is black. They think it is time we had a black president and they don't dislike anything he says in his speeches. When they were questioned to name a specific they like about his speeches, everyone said 'change.' When they were questioned as to which change they wanted, they couldn't list one. To them, any change was good. They think McCain is too old to be president. If it were McCain and Hillary, they will vote for Hillary so we have our first female president. Interesting that it is a complete turn around. I hope he turns out to be good for this country in more ways than just being the first black president since he is bound to win unless the entire senior population gets out to vote.
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>>>>>Re equal justice, I was a bit disheartened by a news story on cnn.com this morning saying 76% of Americans think we are ready for a black president. This was spun as a good news story -- look how far we've come! Maybe it does represent some progress but I don't think it's such good news when you look at it the other way around. It means 24% think we aren't ready.
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>>>>I'd love to see those figures broken down by age. Betcha there'd be a correlation.
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>>>Probably so. Unfortunately, probably an inverse correlation to likelihood of voting. Obama has reportedly pulled a lot of people into the voting process but I'm sure the overall voting population still skews older.
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>>Probably.
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>>BTW, big news around here is that my county and the next one over have both become Democratic majority counties, due to the new registrations for this election. In my county, it's been over 100 years since the Dems had a majority. The next county (Bucks) had a Dem majority briefly in the 70's, but has been ruled with an iron fist by the Republicans ever since.
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>>It'll be interesting to see what happens after the primary.
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>>Tamar