What's happened in the political sphere? For a long time, I did not like the Obama campaign, even if he succeeded in Iowa, my home state. I bought into the "flash-in-the-pan" characterization, and noted how Hillary indeed was more authoritative about policy, foreign and domestic.

Now, under fire, the Hillary campaign has morphed into a fight-or-flight attack mode. It's true that I haven't seen the speeches or the debates, but I believe that the tone indeed has changed.

What may have won me over for Obama is how smart people with ideals agree on supporting him. It's like Obama = Google, while Hillary = the AFL/CIO or the Teamsters. It's new ideas versus re-entrenchment. I've got a friend that was pro-Obama when I was pro-Hillary. I do want the old Hillary back, but there's a reason he's been winning -- his supporters are more rabid!

And re-entrenchment defines the Hillary campaign lately -- all the talk is about how she's appealing to "blue-collar Pennsylvanians" and using Obama's offhand "bitter" word choice as some kind of golden shield against "elitists" like Obama -- and that's absurd! Both HRC and Obama were high-flying lawyers, and now they're both Senators -- if anything, Obama came from much less privilege.

A past post noted how only Obama's thinking could be defined as creative or critical thinking -- which Americans are truly starving for. Nowadays, more Beltway thinking literally equals more death.

I've been won over: Obama speaks on my terms and represents my favorite things. Here's some things I'd (free) associate with him:

*Google, Apple (corporations)
*Professors in departments of humanities, law, social sciences
*Al Gore-ean green technology
*Youth
*The creative class
*Urban liberals
*Real-world environmentalists
*People that read books
*Getting out of Iraq
*Challenging Beltway limits of language and debate

Conversely, here's some things I'd free-associate with Hillary:
*Iraq War/staying in Iraq
*Wal-Mart (she was on their advisory board)
*Old blue-collar men whose job skills have been outmoded but refuse to get educated and blame others for losing their jobs
*Baby boomer ultra-divisive politics
*Uninformed Democrats who think Obama is, or was, "Muslim" (both untrue) -- which may be worse that Republicans for me, because it shows even more ignorance
*Accepting Beltway terms of language and debate
*Crazy political advisors (read: Mark Penn, aka Falstaff)


Things I'd free-associate with John McCain:
*Old
*Confused
*Warmongering
*Neoconservative
*Hypocritical/political opportunist
*Super-white (super-super-white)
*ExxonMobil, Northrop Grumman, KBR
*Joe Lieberman/Likud Party/militantly pro-Israel (i.e. kill for them)
*Faking being anti-torture, and by extension, faking "principle"
*"Islamofascism," or grouping all Muslims as the "Other"

Of course, over time my free-associations will change, but from the looks of the 2008 campaign narrative (where's it been, is at, and where it'll go), I can't really purport to support Hillary anymore. I'm decidedly pro-Obama now.