The 2008 horse race to the White House is on, and it is interesting in the following ways. We know the horses, Obama and Hillary But it is interesting if you look at the riders.
Obama is being rode by the wealthier new branch of the Democratic Party and their collage going kids, along with the very understandable Black Pride voters and the white men who are so uncomfortable with sharing equal power with woman.
Hillary is being rode by the more traditional working class members of the party, retirees and again, understandably, those women who have so long been seeking equal power and wages with men. We were told not many years ago that the middle class was being split into two groups, the upper middle class, those with college degrees and the lower middle class, the blue collar workers. And, it seems we can now see that this is so. This may lead to this country having a true and well-populated third party in the near future.
And, those parties would be one made up of the old guard Republicans. A second party would be a marriage of those few liberal Republicans and the new upper middle class Democrats with the third party made up of the lower middle class blue collar workers, the elderly and poor.
Back to the present day horse race, I am wondering if those Republicans who see the hopelessness of any Republican winning the White House in 2008 will cross over and cast their vote for the Obama horse. His positions are far less threatening to their ideals than the greater threat to them from Hillary”s horse, one that champions greater social programs for the masses and less spending for the industrial/military complex that takes so much of our taxpayers dollars to support.
They say that the last horse race that captured such a large audience here in America was that of Seabiscuit and War Admiral, but I bet this race will out draw that one. I know that more money will be bet on the 2008 race than the other one.
Jim Hall
Clearlake Oaks
