Democrats' conflict of conscience

RICHMOND, Va. -- To understand the struggle of scruples that clasps the Democratic Party in Virginia, take short letter that Hugh Oscar Robertson had the audaciousness to have on his Toilet Jonathan Edwards button to the party's large Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on Saturday night.

Though his campaigner dropped out of the presidential competition last month, Oscar Robertson couldn't convey himself to take the Jonathan Edwards pin from his lapel. So there he stood at a cocktail party, surrounded by other invitees (including his wife, who sported a Edmund Hillary Bill Bill Clinton sticker) who made their commitment to either Clinton or Barack Obama abundantly clear.

Robertson is the kind of Democrat that presidential political campaigns implore to have got in their corner. He is the political party leader in a stretch of suburban area that sprawlings south from Washington, D.C., and which is defined by its amalgamated demographics -- bluish collar, achromatic collar, immigrants, retirees. "It's those same people that Edmund Hillary is trying to get," Oscar Robertson said in describing his neighborhood. "I believe Edmund Hillary probably will win them, but it's not adequate to win in Virginia."

Robertson states he will make his ain judgement based on his appraisal of which campaigner will do the most to turn to growing economical inequality. His determination may not come up until he comes in the vote booth.

Polling in Old Dominion in progress of today's primary elections foretells that Obama is poised to win another convincing victory, besting Bill Bill Clinton in a state where the African-American vote is crucial, where achromatic Democrats be given to be of the upscale, educated assortment who have got got been drawn to his campaigning in droves, and where mugwumps participate.

Such a facile judgement was not so apparent among those Democrats who gathered for the unexpected chance of seeing both Clinton and Obama at their yearly dinner -- a raucous, sold-out affair few could have predicted would play such as a outstanding function in the national presidential sweepstakes. The general agreement among a sampling of the 100s of people who gathered for the cash-bar cocktail political political party -- not the smaller, more than elegant personal business where the party's officers and elite givers gathered -- is that Democrats are divide pretty much down the middle. The statements for one campaigner or the other repeat in the deadlock between Obama and Bill Bill Bill Clinton that have been playing out nationwide.

Kamini Pahuja, who heads a plastics company in the Capital Of Virginia area, back ups Clinton in good measurement because she is a professional adult female who sees in Clinton's campaigning an delinquent opportunity for new leadership. "Why a woman? Because women cognize how to balance," Pahuja says. Noting that other states around the human race long ago elected women heads of state, she says, "How can we be left behind Republic Of India and United Kingdom and Israel? Shame on us."

To Liz Hoefer, a adviser from Alexandria, Obama is a biblical figure. "We have got needed to raise up a leader," Hoefer says. "He's the Joshua. Moses saw the promised land, Joshua led the children into it."

The chanting, squealing greeting for Obama when he entered the sphere long after Bill Clinton had finished her workmanlike address was indeed spiritual in its fervor. Hundreds of immature protagonists filled the upper-tier seats, many of them having traveled to Capital Of Virginia from college campuses around the American Capital area. Obama's hallmark rhetoric lilted with easiness -- he'd just run up triumphs in three states on Saturday -- and lifted his audience.

Earlier, Bill Clinton had given her ain signature performance. When she was elected senator from New House Of York in 2000, she promised her components she would be a "workhorse, not a show horse." She still is, delivering addresses thick on particulars and thin on soaring oratory. Her leaden style have worked so far in her political career. But in Obama she is matched against a glossy thoroughbred who mesmerizes crowds not so much with his path record, but with the possibility of exhilaration to come.

Mary Tycz of Waterfall Church, Va., rematches the statements for both campaigners over and over in her head, still trying to make up one's mind on her vote. "I like Hillary's depth of experience. I like her brain, her intellect. I like that she's a woman, she's quick on her feet." On the other hand, "Obama is inspirational to more than people than me -- to many people. When he states change, people are buying it." As for Tycz, she, too, is resigned to making her concluding pick only when she acquires to the polls.