Bobert, I just looked at the video, though I had read the news report this morning.

Vehement? Yes. Blowing her fuse? No.

Irritated? Yes. Visibly angry? I don't think so. I don't think that strong an adjective would have been applied to all the headlines had it been a male candidate speaking with the degree of emotion she exhibited.

I hear a lot of Dems say they think Clinton makes too many people mad to be as electable as Obama. They may be right - I'm still pondering that one. And there are a number of reasons given about why it may be that she makes people mad. The more I watch, listen, and read, however, I think the main reason she makes people mad is because many Americans react that way to a powerful, assertive female.

I am tending to think, more and more, that Obama's race is no deterent to his electability, because he behaves, speaks, and sounds like any well-educated, powerful and poised White man. I think White Americans don't really identify him with the dominant African-American culture of the USA.   If he were the same person he is, with the same history, same positions, etc., etc, except that he had dark skin, more negroid features, a "Black" accent, and that wonderful, oratorical style of so many Black leaders who have come from behind the pulpit, enough of the White majority would be threatened and alienated that they wouldn't begin to think of voting for him.

If Clinton was just exactly as she is, including her speech, delivery, positions, etc., but were a light-skinned Black woman, people would tend to get even more pissed with her. If she were dark-skinned and otherwise had the accent and personal rhetorical style of the dominant African-American culture, then she would REALLY evoke fear and anger in the majority White voting population.

I'm offering an opinion based on observation, not a value judgement. I'm curious about what the reactions of people to these two candidates suggest about the current attitudes within our society regarding race and gender.

Nor am I saying this because I have decided to support Clinton. As I become more informed, I am not enthusiastic about either candidate, although, given the alternatives, I will gladly campaign for, and vote for either one in the general election. At this point, however, when I try to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of each against the other, I find the scales pretty much balance.

I watched the ABC video. According to the ABC commentator, Obama's flyers are in fact, misleading. They leave out the half of the information that maks clear what her positions on these issues really are. (big surprise - it is a campaign, and campaigns always do their best to distort the facts.) It is why I am rarely interested in the campaign propaganda of one candidate about other candidates - and struggle to try to read between the lines of what they say about their own positions. What ever is being said in a campaign is so completely full of spin that it should never be accepted at face value.

For me, the campaigns always destroy my trust and belief in the integrity of any major candidate. It isn't possible to have integrity and behave ethically and be politically successful.

Yeck.