While the outcome is by no means certain, today's primary may bring two candidates much closer to securing the nomination of their parties.
John McCain is favored to win the bulk of delegates today, yet some powerful voices in the Republican Party oppose him because they see him as too liberal, an assessment which thoroughly amuses Democrats.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is favored to win more delegates, but the race is presumably much closer than on the Republican side.
It is interesting that what divides supporters of the two major Republican candidates, McCain and Romney, is ideology, while what divides supporters of the two major Democratic candidates, Clinton and Obama, is identity.
Among hard core conservative Republicans, ideology is the only true guide to voting. Many, though not all, Republican voters see Romney as more conservative than McCain, mainly because McCain opposed Bush's tax cuts at first, proposed a comprehensive immigration plan, and is apparently not sufficiently pro-life (although I'm not sure what he would have to do to prove he was sufficiently pro-life.) They believe this in spite of the fact that Romney, the man they believe is more conservative, once campaigned on a pro-choice platform, while to the best of my knowledge, the pro-life McCain never has. So while each candidate has changed positions on one or more issues, the radical base of the GOP believes and trusts Romney more than McCain, and trusts Romney's flip flops more than McCain's.
As I have said before, elections are national Rorschach tests: we see things not as they are but as we are. Maybe the Republicans are really voting on the basis of identity, character, likeability, etc. but they want to believe they are voting on the basis of their ideology, because ideology is paramount in the Republican Party. Ideology trumps practicality, compassion, unity, reality, history, and common sense. If it did not, how else do you explain the Bush administration, whose foreign and domestic policy, whatever the reality, is explained in conservative ideological terms by its apologists?
Then again, maybe the blowhards like Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity and Hewitt favor Romney over McCain because they believe he can be controlled much easier than McCain, and the story they are putting out about Romney being more conservative is simply a well-crafted bit of propaganda.
The Democratic candidates, on the other hand, are not that different ideologically, and their supporters aren't voting for them based on ideological differences, real or imagined. In fact, most Democrats see their positions on the issues as basically the same, and so most Democrats will support either of them in the general election.
What divides supporters of Clinton and Obama is not ideology but identity. Woman of a certain age (mostly those over forty) are supporting Clinton, while younger women support Obama. White voters are more apt to vote for Clinton, while black voters favor Obama. Of course, it isn't true across the board. I am a white grandmother and a feminist who supports Obama, and I know some young women who support Clinton.
There is some truth, however, to the conventional wisdom that women are hungry for female leadership and many will vote for Hillary only because she is a woman. While that isn't a good enough reason for me to support someone, I don't think it should be criticized. Neither should the fact that some Democrats will vote for Obama because he is African American or because he is from a younger generation or simply because his words move them.
People vote for candidates for all kinds of reasons having little to do with their capability or positions on the issues. (A great many Americans voted for George W. Bush in 2000 based only on his supposed religious beliefs, ignoring the fact that he was totally unqualified on several fronts including intelligence and experience, and a great many Americans voted for John Kerry in 2004 just because he wasn't Bush.)
So we will see who comes out with more support at the end of the day, but we will probably not have two solid nominees. It is a primary season full of surprises, mainly because the electorate knows it wants something completely different from George W. Bush, but isn't sure who best offers that.
It is true, I believe, that we see things not as they are but as we are.
Today may not determine our two party nominees, but it will tell us a great deal about who we are.
