Super Tuesday 2PM

I’m blogging today for RH Reality Check. I’m on pins and needles thinking about the Super Tuesday presidential primaries–what they mean to our country, what they mean to me as an individual, what they mean to the future of my children and grandchildren, and indeed the world. Right now, at 2pm, I can take the large and long view:

Our daughter Donna called this morning from Phoenix, excited to tell us her letter-to-the-editor of The Arizona Republic had been published. Incensed by pejorative e-mails circulated by a conservative friend about the religious and cultural implications of Barack Obama’s middle name “Hussein”, she’d decided to speak out against the racism.

We congratulated her and then asked if she and her husband had voted yet. “We early voted. He was for Edwards. I voted for Hillary,” she said. Then she paused. “But now I kind of wish I’d voted for Obama.”

There ensued one of those intense family conversations going on in households across the country today, hashing out what each of us likes, dislikes, and worries about with each candidate, predictions about the various possible match-ups in the general election, and what the polls and pundits are saying.

An old pol once told me, “They’ll turn on you on a dime.” I was struck by how the nuances of seemingly small events can trigger tidal waves of voter response; the wave of New Hampshire women voters moving to Hillary after she was attacked is a perfect example. Barack (I’ll use either first or last names for both henceforth) is riding a wave right now.

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But who knows for sure whether the early votes for Hillary will garner her the numbers she needs in today’s primary states? Who knows for sure whether Oprah’s California swing a few days ago will lasso enough additional voters in that delegate-heavy state to hand its prize to Barack? Who knows for sure whether Mitt Romney’s well-funded machine will best John McCain’s staying power?

I don’t know exactly how our family debate ended because I had to go to a Women’s Media Center board meeting. As I arrived, Jane Fonda was describing how her children are much more engaged in these elections than she’s ever seen them. “We’re on different sides, but this is the first time they’ve been so active in politics, and I’m so glad,” she said.

Me, I’m a sappy patriot. I too am elated about the high level of engagement in these critically important elections. I celebrate the extraordinary amount of public and attention focused on them. But I just hope that people’s engagement lasts beyond these presidential primaries, which are not wholly democratic and not necessarily fully representative of voters’ preferences. I hope it continues through the state and local primary elections and the general election in November. And then that they don’t go back to using Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central show as a surrogate for the hands-on work of making their voices heard by officials after they’ve been elected.

For an election isn’t just one moment in time; it is a cycle that never ends. So we the people can never stop being involved in the process. These are my thoughts at 2pm on Super Tuesday. Ask me again tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll be weighing in on the people, the polls, the press, and the results from time to time here.