Letters to the Editor
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@ droogoy
To be fair, not all Obama supporters are like that. We do see Obama people post in these threads who speak to the issues and who care about issues.
I actually think the more dangerous Obama supporters are people who actually are some of the crossover voters who are extreme Hillary-haters. Sure as the sun's gonna rise, those voters will vote for McCain in the fall.
Hillary-haters usually fall in three groups as I see it:
1. The same Starr-chamber-like Republicans who went after Bill Clinton because he was taking their dreams of a continuing Republican regime away from them.
2. Men who just plain don't want to see a woman as president and probably take all the frustrations that they cannot resolve with their wives or other women in their lives out on a cardboard creature of their imagination called Hillary.
3. People who can't forgive her for her war vote and other votes that they don't like regarding military choices.
Can a Hillary-hater also become an Obamaniac? I suppose so. Strong feelings of hate could prompt strong feelings of love. However, I think this is not really the usual Hillary-hater. Instead, Obamaniacs are probably pretty similar to young people who adore Ron Paul, of which my daughter is one. They are looking for someone who will speak particularly to them. They are looking for something or someone to believe in who in no way reminds them or their baby-boomer Mom or Dad. I also subscribe a bit to the Steele theory. (Another story.)
Those preacher cadences of Obama's are probably pretty new and amazing to people who have never been to the type of church that employs such techniques. As someone brought up in my early years in a Southern Baptist Church with an actual revivalist preacher for one particularly memorable year, I am totally immune to the "Jesus" appeal, but I sure do recognize the language of revivalism. I can stand it. As long as he doesn't start preaching dominionism, I will vote for Barack if he is the nominee.
Obama won't work as well for evangelical whites, especially if McCain chooses someone like Huckabee as a running mate. Those folks already have Jesus.
Not to put too strong of a point on it -- because I don't want to get into a debate on the issue of electability -- but you can find in much of what I have said here the reasons why I feel that Obama cannot prevail over John McCain.