Legal Commentary

AP Tracks N.C. Voter: Why She Voted For Hillary

By Jeralyn

The AP and Yahoo News, as part of a polling project, has been returning to the same undecided voters over the course of the past year, in an attempt to analyze how their thinking changes during the course of the presidential campaign.

One of the North Carolina voters the AP followed is Meribeth Howlett, a clinical researcher. She recently made up her mind and just voted absentee for Hillary. She explains her reasoning, which I think is spot-on:

"OK — I made a decision, but I should say up front that I'd be happy to vote for either Hillary or Barack. However, I voted for Hillary Clinton. Yes, I've been on Web sites and found the two to have plans that are remarkably similar and so it came down to a more philosophical decision, who do I BELIEVE will do a better job. Because Barack Obama identifies himself as the best candidate to be an agent of 'real change in Washington,' I was expecting to see some details outlining innovative plans to achieve change, but I did not see anything that stood out as greatly different from what Hillary proposes.

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"Hillary has deep roots in D.C. and that has pros-cons. I am viewing it as a positive in that I believe she understands how to navigate the system to make changes (as well as knowing what won't work). Another plus for me is that she has spent more time than any of the candidates researching the health care issue and can build on what she learned back when her husband was president.

Howlett adds:

"I will confess that I'm saddened that I'll be lumped in the polls as just another middle-aged white female voting for Hillary since it has absolutely nothing to do with gender or ethnicity."

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).