Racist or Sexist?

Now that John Edwards is out of the campaign, I've realized the intrinsic difficulty in supporting Edwards. It's hard, as a white male, to justify supporting him because it's either perceived as racist, sexist, or both.

But it was really about the ideas. John Edwards was the only candidate talking about the extent of corporate greed and the economic war on the middle class. I imagine we'll start hearing a lot more about the squeeze that affects 98% of the country.

So, now comes the difficulty. Both of the candidates have different strong suits:

Hillary is best suited to take on the Republican Slime Machine in the general election. While I'd rather return to some politics of substance, the reality is that it's not likely to happen, with the way the media are incentivized and the realities of the past elections. But Hilary brings along Bill, which I thought was a good thing until the last couple weeks. And I don't think she's played very fair in Nevada (only complaining about the casino caucus sites after Obama was endorsed) and Florida and Michigan, where the candidates agreed not to campaign.

Obama is an amazing speaker, and stands in such contrast to Bush that his speaking abilities are further emphasized. Now, being a good speaker and leading a country are 2 separate things (just like the ability to stay in a marriage and lead a country are separate skills). But from my experiences over the past 4 years, Obama likes to talk a lot about the process. About what the leaders should be doing. Instead of actually leading. And he keeps talking about bipartisanship, which (he will find out) really means letting the Republicans kick dirt in your face at every opportunity.

At this point I'm leaning toward Obama (sexist) but could see myself coming around to Hillary depending on the next few weeks of campaigning (racist). If the vote was today, with Edwards out, my vote would go to Obama.

But, no matter who wins the primary, we're infinitely better off with Hillary or Obama at the helm than we have been with Cheney and Bush.