Up Against The Wall

I'm grateful to Bruce and Tankwoman, and most of all TBV reader, commenter and friend, Amber, (who has been sending me reams of reading to help me make up my mind) for their input on tomorrow's primary. Nonetheless, this piece by Rebecca Traister, a Salon writer who often seems to speak what is on my mind, still perfectly expresses the place in which I find myself today, twenty-four hours before I walk into Mesa Verde Community Center and pull a lever: Undecided '08: Should I vote for Clinton or Obama? On Super Tuesday, for the first time in my life, I will walk into the voting booth without knowing who to vote for. I blame John Edwards.

Traister's piece apparently touched many nerves, in other undecideds as well as ardent advocates for both candidates. There are currently 322 comments appended to her piece, and I intend to read every one of them (See, Amber? I'm doing some reading on my own!), as well as everything else I can, if it means staying up all night tonight. I've been combing through both candidates' environmental and energy positions, which are virtually identical, so that hasn't been much help. Over the weekend I've talked of little else with friends and family, some of whom are as baffled as I am and the rest are pretty much for Hillary, not surprising given that most of my friends are as rabidly feminist as Robin Morgan, whose piece Goodbye To All That (#2) might be the tie-breaker, if I read it over again just before I leave the house tomorrow. Except that, then, there's this, New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama, a statement signed by more than 100 New York feminist leaders, including Katha Pollitt, a writer whom I certainly respect as much as I do Robin Morgan, for her lifetime of feminist cred, who has written a pretty convincing piece herself in her blog at The Nation, Why I'm Supporting Barack Obama.

God, this is embarrassing. I find myself wishing I lived up in Chama or Durango, and there's ten feet of snow in my driveway, it's still snowing, and leaving the house tomorrow is no longer an option. But I don't, so it's reading all night, and maybe still eenie meeny minie mo tomorrow, or abstaining from this preliminary choice and getting behind whichever of the two wins the nomination, working my ass off for her/him. fighting like hell for the living, and praying like hell for the dead. Oh wait, that's a different context, isn't it? Maybe?

Technorati Tags: Democratic presidential primary, feminism, indecision, Rebecca Traist, Robin Morgan, Katha Pollitt

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