'Minorities' to Determine Democrat Challenger?

It's been interesting to read the voxpop in the UK newspapers regarding who the great British public would prefer to see in the White House come 4th November. I've yet to seen one woman say they would prefer Barack Obama or John McCain to Hilary Clinton, in fact the only women I've seen say she would prefer anybody to Hilary was Amanda Platel on Question Time last week, and her choice seemed to be based on a dislike of Bill Clinton rather than the current Democrat candidate.

With this in mind it's interesting to see the LA Times story about how the Latino vote, and in particular the Latino female vote, in California was firmly in the Clinton camp rather than her opponent. Reading threough the article it would appear that the Clinton followers have gone down the classic election route of harnessing the backing of a section of society that feels otherwise underused politically or under represented.

USA Today also has a story on its 2008 Election page setting out how the Latino vote is going to be crucial to the outcome of the Democrat election. Logic would suggest that whoever has the backing of the Latino's will win not only the Democrat leadership challenge but also the 'big one' itself. The one thing that struck me reading this article was the quote attributed to Barack Obama that "It's just a matter of us getting more information to them," he said in Chicago. "As Latino voters get to know me … they realize I'm somebody who's going to be battling for all people, including Latino voters."

Now reading this at face value it strikes me that there is something very wrong in politics, not just American politics, when one of the key areas of an electorate has been ignored because the politician's advisors have decided to concentrate on 'safe' areas. I personally believe that politics in the 21st Century needs a more radical approach and Hilary Clinton would get my vote simply because she has seen that there is an area within American society that is valued for its contribution to the economy, via absurdly low wages, but which lacks representation at higher levels. The other question that both articles have me raise is why do Hispanic voters relate to a WASP woman (sounds like something from The Twilight Zone) more readily than to a black man?

Watching CNN reporting the Arab world's television coverage of 'Super' Tuesday it is clear that whilst the arab world would be happy for anybody who didn't have a W in the middle of their name to be inaugurated come January 2009, there is more backing for Hilary Clinton than for either of the two male candidates who she will have to beat to become the first female president of the USA. Perhaps they feel a woman would have more empathy with them following a succession of men who have used force in Arab and Islamic states as a sop to the Israeli question rather than actually finding a solution to the ongrowing problem of suicide bombers, terrorism and Al Qaeeda.

It's also interesting to see how California, which in 2004 saw 55% of its vote go to Democrat John Kerry, has apparently swung behind the Republican's - it just shows how wrong you can be about a state as I would have thought that California with its apparently liberal outlook on life would be a Democrat state - and indeed it has voted Democrat in each US Election since 1988. Mind you, as Johann Hari pointed out in an article last November things aren't quite as they seem when it comes to politics and California.