I’m always suspicious of newspaper articles composed of man in the street anecdotes, but if this article from the (UK) Independent is accurate, then we may be in for a November election that even the Democrats can’t lose:
In the wealthiest suburbs of Virginia, a quiet revolution was under way yesterday as life-long republicans switched sides to vote for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.
So deep is the disillusionment with George Bush, so uninspiring the choice offered by the Republicans, that many life-long conservatives are abandoning the Grand Old Party to support a liberal black candidate.
…
Laura DeBusk, 37, a “stay-at-home-mom”, is one of the refuseniks who turned out yesterday for Mr Obama across Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC. In the past two presidential elections she voted for George Bush in the belief that he could best protect America from terrorists. It is a choice she now bitterly regrets.
But she has been inspired by Mr Obama’s offer to bring together Americans from all political persuasions: “A friend of mine called me up after she heard I was for Obama,” she said. “She told me she was as well. ‘We’re the Obama-mamas,’ she told me. And it’s true. He is so inspiring we are going to volunteer for his campaign.”
Along with many of her friends, Ms DeBusk has broken with the GOP for now. She is angry with Mr Bush over the war in Iraq, the state of the economy and the damage done to America’s reputation.
“You never know what somebody is going to do in the White House, but to me Barack Obama is a breath of fresh air,” she said while heading out the door to cast her first vote for a Democrat in the Virginia primary. “He just doesn’t seem beholden to anyone.
But if Mr Obama is denied the nomination, Ms DeBusk will not be supporting Hillary Clinton. “She is just too polarising, too divisive,” she said. “I will vote for McCain instead. He’s a decent man even if he is less inspiring.”
Maybe, just maybe, we folks on the front lines have deluded ourselves into believing that the Republican rank and file is as mindlessly partisan as the people for whom they’ve been voting the past few years. If McCain loses these white suburbanites to Obama in big numbers then he’s toast. Yet another reason to support Obama. If he runs the table from here on in, then, one would hope, the super delegates will see the writing on the wall and coalesce behind him.
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