Overheard while waiting for tickets to 'Hair' in Central Park: Why one New Yorker isn't voting

[BurtWorm]

She was a middle-aged white woman, middle-class, probably from the Upper West Side--she had her dog with her, which suggested she lived within walking distance of the Park. She was with a group of friends--all women of the same age and class--who were remarkably tolerant of her position, though one did probe her a bit for evidence to support her position that there's hardly any difference between Obama and McCain, on the issue of Supreme Court nominations especially. On that issue, the reluctant voter acknowledged some concern about a McCain presidency, but not enough to move her off her firm position that Obama is unworthy of her vote.

At one point, she went off to talk to another friend on the line. When she came back, she seemed satisfied by what she'd heard--that Obama's trip to Israel didn't do much to shake up that sector of the overseas vote. Older Israeli-Americans, she'd been told, would still be tending to vote for McCain over Obama. Younger ones viewed him somewhat more favorably, but many of them said they could not bring themselves to vote for anyone whose middle name is "Hussein."

I don't consider myself to be fanatically loyal to Obama. I think he's a pretty good candidate--not perfect (on FISA and health care, for example), but not someone like Kerry about whom I had serious misgivings all along. But I found myself shaking with anger over this woman's perverse pride in withholding her support for him, especially when I considered her reasoning.

I had to wonder, is there any difference between a voter who thinks "Barack Hussein Obama" is a Muslim extremist because Fox News repeatedly hints at it and one who thinks anyone with "Hussein" for a middle name can't be good for Israel? Is there any difference between the way those voters think about Obama and national security ultimately? I mean, let's face it: the former are clearly unsophisticated idiots, but the latter may have a point based on sophisticated reasoning about Obama's Kenyan heritage and Indonesian upbringing. Would Obama be more inclined toward sympathy for the Palestinian viewpoint (and hostility toward Israel) than someone who didn't have a Muslim father and step-father? But is this latter point of view, sophisticated as it may be, any more reasonable than the demonstrably false view that Obama is a Muslim? Is it reasonable, really, to base a vote (or non-vote) for president on a person's middle name?

I thought to myself, what's one vote? She's not going to tip it one way or another. New York is going for Obama with her or without her. Still, I wish she would think more about the Supreme Court and maybe this article by Samantha Power in the New York Review of Books than about one-measly-third of Obama's name.