Because it’s a close race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, don’t expect that people will unite around the eventual nominee. At this point, there will likely be a residue of lost support within the Democrats for either candidate. Perhaps this will occur because of how long the contest has gone on, or how damaging to both candidates the contest becomes by final nomination time. More likely, this protracted nomination contest is allowing the Republicans to consolidate their campaign strengths and solidify their negative positions on the opposition.
Aside from the ‘historic’ nature of both Democratic candidates, whether it’s a woman or an African American, the Republicans will naturally find a way to employ either of these factors in a detracting manner to the oppostition candidate. The ‘glass ceiling’ is not totally broken and racism is not dead in America. Both Democratic candidates represent a departure from the past, and it will be posited that we do not need this kind of change for the purposes of change only. Already we see both Democrats stressing the hope aspect that change is supposed to represent. However, the Republicans, in their usual politics of fear, will trump hope and demonstrate that just a change in direction is nothing more than pure hope without all the necessary precedent to really make progress in government happen.
The politics of fear that we are governmentally headed into uncharted waters at a minimum creates voter doubts. The potential exists for a real Democratic voter dilemma. The fear of the unknown preys on your mind while the hope supposedly raises the heart. In the end, if you can make a case for a voter’s heart and mind to be of two different persuasions, therein lies the dilemma.