I only get one vote, huh?

This past week, I proudly concluded my streak of never watching one of George W Bush's State of the Union addresses. I just can't stand to see what he has to say and the poor and unpolished way he says it. I can't stand his little beady eyes and his little smirkish grin. And what I cant stand the most, what makes me cringe is that people in other countries actually think he represents me in any way!

With that being said, how nice it is to have two democratic candidates that I would be happy to have in the White House, representing me and promoting the things that are important to me! But as I was concluding watching the debate on Thursday, from a policy perspective, i didn't really see much appreciable difference between Clinton and Obama. And the things that he did hold up as differences, who was opposed to the war from the start, some intricacies of their health care reform initiatives, and some points on immigration policy don't seem like that big of differences. Let's face it, almost anything would be better than what we have!

This is truly a historical time and an exciting one! Either a woman or a black man will be the Democratic candidate for president this year. Momentous is that say 100 years ago, neither of those groups were even allowed to vote in this country. I am sure there are many of the older generation who never thought they would see this day in their lifetime. And it is here, and it is exciting. One of the most impressive things about Barack Obama has been his ability to mobilize and engage previously politically disenfranchised sections of the population, namely the youth and black communities. I see my 22 year old cousin actively inspired by Barack and actively involved as a volunteer in his campaign, putting up flyers, attending speeches. Barack likely has some of the broadest financial support of any presidential candidate. He has refused to take money from PACs and lobbying groups and 90% of his campaign contributions have been in amounts of $100 or less! And he raised $23 million dollars in the month of January alone, more than any presidential nominee in history.

I was struck by a question that was asked by a 38 year old woman during the debate which said that she has never had the opportunity to participate in a presidential election where there wasn't either a Bush or a Clinton running. Obviously, this is the same case for me. For 20 years there has been either a Bush or Clinton in the White House! I did like Hilary's response though ("Maybe what we need is another Clinton to clean up after this Bush!") And let's face it, the 8 years of the Clinton presidency were not bad ones. We had a trade surplus, a strong economy and good diplomatic relations around the world. But, I can't assume that similar things would automatically happen with Hilary in the White House. As she likes to remind us, she is not Bill. Hilary says that she has the experience on her side but sometimes it takes impassioned eyes, not exposed to all the seediness and backdoor dealsmanship of the Washington political machine to really get things done.

If I am taking the political process seriously, I can't pick who I want to be president based on who I like better. I should pick based on who is best for this country. As a black woman, I would be happy to see either a woman or a black man as president of this country.

So the long and the short of it is, that am still not completely decided. This is going to be a far more difficult decision for me than the actual presidential election. I guess I will just see who I am feeling most inspired by on Tuesday!