The Better Candidate

What a delight to vote yesterday for the candidate I liked the best rather than, as in years past, the candidate that I didn’t dislike more than the other.

Obama’s huge success in Virginia, a state with an open primary, seems to show that independents are drawn to Obama more than they are to McCain. Note how tight the race was between Huckabee and McCain. I suspect this was because conservatives rallied around Huckabee and many moderates and independents voted in the Democratic primary.  If it ends up being a race between Clinton and McCain, the conservatives may come out to vote against Clinton.  But if it’s a race between Obama and McCain, the conservatives may stay home, the independents may go with Obama, and the Democrats will finally take back the White House.

By Noelle McAfee

I am professor of philosophy at Emory University and editor of the Kettering Review. My latest book, Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis, explores what is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the world today. My other writings include Democracy and the Political Unconscious; Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship; Julia Kristeva; and numerous articles and book chapters. Edited volumes include Standing with the Public: the Humanities and Democratic Practice and a special issue of the philosophy journal Hypatia on feminist engagements in democratic theory. I am also the author of the entry on feminist political philosophy in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and well into my next book project on democratic public life.

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