So I'm sitting in the diner at lunchtime yesterday, and couldn't help eavesdropping on the two sixty-ish white guys in work clothes perched on stools at the counter, talking politics.

I hear them badmouthing Hilary as "not strong enough" to "send in the troops" when necessary, like Bush(!), so of course I immediately dismissed them as a couple of ignorant right-wing Limbaugh-loving dittoheads. And as the conversation progressed, nothing they said ~ for a while ~ gave me any reason to reassess their political position(s).

Then the one guy tells the other, "you know, I think I going to vote for Obama ~ because he's a smoker. I don't think any of the other candidiates smoke. I saw him waiting beside a stage while he was being introduced, and he was sneaking a few drags ~ a regular guy. The one I really hate the most is Huckaby. He's some kind of born-again health nut: no drinking, no smoking, nothing."

His buddy didn't declare who he'd vote for, but he sort of nodded and agreed and had only nice things to say about Obama. These were southern white men who hated the Clintons (both of 'em), but they did not seem ready to vote Republican as they had in recent years. And they did not show any evidence of the kind of knee-jerk racism I would've expected from them based on some of their other comments as well as their general personalities and style, and which they undoubtedly would have shown just a few years ago. I found the whole thing extremely interesting.