the New York primary is February 5th

When Obama won Iowa, the Intrepid Young Journalist called me from the west coast and clued me in on how it had all gone down; the demographics of who voted for Hillary (older women, old party loyalists) and who voted for Obama (people under 40; the two black people who live in Iowa) confirmed everybody's expectations (well-covered on Feministing) that young women were breaking rank with Second-Wave feminists, who really do plan on voting for the female candidate for that reason alone.

A few days later, back in New York, the Intrepid Young Journalist, who was registered as an independent, was running up against the deadline to switch his affiliation to Democrat so he could vote in the primary; he discovered that it was the last night, and that rather than try to postmark the form, it was safer to go to the registrar's office, which would be open until midnight, and wait in line.

Aside from the fact that states around the country are reporting recordbreaking numbers of voter registrations clearly sent in just before the deadline to vote in the primaries, the line at the NYC office, the Intrepid Young Journalist reported, was made up entirely of young white guys and middle-aged-to-older black men: a pretty good profile of Obama voters. In any case, even in NY in the clutches of the Clinton machine, a sizable contingent is planning (as am I) to vote in primaries for the first time ever.

The IYJ also notes that New York is a shared-delegate state, so even if Hillary, being our Senator, is destined to best Obama, your primary vote still matters, because the delegates are split up in proportion to the votes each candidate receives (in contrast, Republicans in New York run a winner-takes-all primary). Here is a nice little article that explains how everything works.

And finally, I realize that in writing this post, I've made a number of assumptions about those reading my blog. I'm fine with that. (My European and Canadian readers, of whom I have a rather delightful number based on the Comments, may go take a coffee break).