The dude vote
Eight years after the beer-buddy test gave us W., the guys are going for Obama or McCain, if only to keep Hillary out of the White House.
By Edward McClelland
Read more: Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Men, Opinion, Barack Obama, 2008 election
Salon photo composite
Feb. 26, 2008 | The movies don't get any manlier than buddy cop flicks. They're romances for guys, portrayals of male marriage. Two men with clashing personalities -- the strait-laced family man, the trigger-happy hot shot -- team up to form a crime-fighting force that's more powerful than their individual egos. In the search for opposites, it's amazing how many movies cast a white guy and a black guy. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx in "Miami Vice." Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in "Men in Black." Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in "Lethal Weapon" I through X.
John Stodder, a 52-year-old blogger from Palos Verdes Peninsula, Calif., looks at the presidential field and sees another buddy-cop pairing: John McCain and Barack Obama, supposed mavericks who break their parties' rules, bound together by a common mission -- keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
"I wish they could run together," Stodder swoons. "They'd be like one of those old 1970s cop shows. The crusty old seen-it-all guy who goes by his gut, partnered with the brilliant rookie who's got courage to match his brains.
"They both seem like leaders to me ... If they end up running against each other, I don't yet know which way I'd go. But if only one of them is in the race, that's the one I'm voting for."
From George Washington to George W. Bush, the Oval Office has been a guy kind of place. Guys are on a 43-0 run. And some guys would apparently like to keep it that way. A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that, among men, McCain beats Clinton by 9 points. Against Obama, he only ties. There are also plenty of guys who voted for Barack Obama in the primaries but will switch to John McCain if the lady gets the nomination -- even though they'll have to leap over a huge political divide to get there. (At the end of 2006, John McCain had a lifetime rating of 83 from the American Conservative Union; Barack Obama pulled an 8.)
In most cases, the Obama-McCain guys don't prefer the male candidates because they explicitly, or consciously, want to keep the presidency an all-male club. But when they talk about McCain and Obama, they bring up characteristics that guys admire in other guys: independence, plain-spokenness, charisma, a willingness to take a stand, an ability to gain the country's respect. They don't object to a woman in the White House, they say. They just object to Hillary. Even though, in this election, that's the same thing.
I met my first Obama-McCain Guy on Super Tuesday, at an Obama rally in Chicago. Paul Farahvar, a 33-year-old lawyer, voted for Obama in the Illinois primary -- "He's a unifying figure. He's got a charisma." But if Obama doesn't win the nomination, Farahvar will switch to McCain. Like those of so many other voters choosing America's Next Top Politician this year, his reasons have more to do with the candidates than the issues.
"I think that having the president we have now, we need someone who can be well-respected," he says. "We need a change from the polarizing politics from the Republican and Democratic sides. If it's Obama vs. McCain, there wouldn't be bickering. I can't vote for Hillary Clinton knowing full well that my country's time and money will be spent demonizing her."
McCain, on the other hand, is "an older gentleman," "a war hero," "a maverick."
From Obama to McCain is a huge ideological jump, Farahvar realizes.
"I don't agree with McCain on a lot of issues," he acknowledges, "but I don't agree with Obama on a lot of issues. I don't agree with him on healthcare."
Farahvar has been raising funds for Obama on the Internet. Recently, he went to a party where he took hundreds of dollars in donations from doctors.
"They've never voted Democratic, but they gave money," he says.
Would they vote for Clinton?
"I don't know any doctors who would vote for Hillary. You talk to them about universal healthcare."
Yet Obama also wants the government involved in healthcare. McCain thinks it should stay private. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage every year. McCain voted to abolish it. Obama wants to bring our troops back from Iraq by 2010. McCain says they may stay another 100 years. Obama is a dovish, big-government liberal who takes the kinds of positions that have earned Democrats the "Mommy Party" label. But he's not suffering for it the way Hillary Clinton is. He's not even suffering the way other male Democrats have. Al Gore was mocked for the fashion consultant who put him in "alpha male" outfits, John Kerry for his sugar-mama wife. Obama is especially popular with men under 45, beating McCain by 7 points.
So, eight years after who-would-you-rather-have-a-beer-with gave us W., some guys are again putting the beer goggles on. They're voting their man-crushes, ideology be damned. Both McCain and Obama cut potent masculine figures. McCain was a fighter pilot who survived five and a half years in a commie prison camp. Obama, tall and deep-voiced, is, as a Clinton aide reportedly put it, "your imaginary hip black friend."