Ronna Wallace and Gina Maniscalco are good friends who live in Sharon. They've held signs side by side for their candidates - Wallace for Hillary Clinton, Maniscalco for Barack Obama. They affix their respective posters to two lifesize cutouts of President Bush. Though they diverge on the candidates, their disagreements are civil - usually.
That's Wallace's take, anyway. "I don't see it as adversarial. One of the positives of this is it's just a real healthy give and take," said Wallace, a political consultant. "I haven't heard anyone say, 'I'm right and you're wrong. It's my way or the highway.' "
But Maniscalco, a self-employed businesswoman, says her decision to support Obama has shocked most of her friends. "For this liberal, Democratic, middle-aged woman, it's been the most anguishing thing," she said. "My mother has practically disowned me. She said I was a traitor to my gender."
There's a delicious irony in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign: Liberal women who usually vote as a bloc are split. It has come down to a black man and a white woman, and no less than history hangs in the balance. The race has pitted friends against friends, sisters against sisters, mothers against daughters, with many feeling they have to justify their votes.
That the contest has come to this has both energized and polarized the candidates' supporters. Once a double-digit favorite over Obama, Clinton now trails him slightly in pledged delegates. Tuesday's victories for Obama in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia bore more ominous news for Clinton: He beat her among women voters.
The political discussions among friends and relatives are often civil and light-hearted, but they can get down and dirty. Women have been called traitors if they don't support Clinton. Black women have been called traitors if they don't support Obama. The opposite is also true: White women say they've been made to feel racist for not supporting Obama, while black women have been made to feel disloyal for not supporting the female candidate. Even Oprah Winfrey was forced to defend her support of Obama. "I am not a traitor," she declared. "I'm just following my own truth."
At one recent get-together in a Boston suburb, somewhere between the tea and the frittata, one Clinton supporter got fed up with the steady diet of pro-Obama and anti-Clinton remarks directed at her by good friends. It started as soon as she arrived, and it didn't end until she escaped nearly two hours later. The brunch, she says, became a "Barack Obama pep rally," and woe to those backing his rival.
"I was sick to death of everyone coming up to me and throwing Barack Obama in my face," said the woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of further alienating her friends. "I'm 45 years old, I'm smart, I read several papers every day, I'm an informed voter, and I shouldn't have to feel like I have to defend my vote."
Janet Costa Bates was talking politics recently with a friend who was so pro-Clinton that Bates, an Obama supporter, tried to change the topic. "She was getting agitated, so I got myself out of the conversation," said Bates, associate director at Boston College's Career Center. "I could see how adamant she was, and I could see the end of a friendship, so I just decided to leave it alone."
Micho Spring, a longtime Democratic activist who is supporting Obama, said she has felt "many a chill" on the other end of the phone when she explained to friends that she would not be attending a Clinton fund-raiser because she's not supporting her. At one recent event, a friend walked by Spring's table and whispered "traitor" in her ear, with a big smile.
"It's a new phenomenon, that we've got great choices and are on different sides," said Spring, chairwoman of Weber Shandwick New England. "But sisterhood is alive and well in Boston. Hillary isn't dividing us; she is just giving us a lot to think about."
The dynamic is slightly different for black women, who, like white women, are voting in record numbers this election. Though some black women may be torn between race and gender, polls indicate that they overwhelmingly support Obama.
For Colette Phillips, who owns a Boston public relations firm, race trumps gender. One of her elderly black friends started out supporting Clinton but was talked out of it by friends, including Phillips, who told her: "Excuse me, honey, but what are you thinking? Let's get real here."
But Phillips hasn't been able to persuade the woman who works down the hall from her. May Seto, a senior account director at Phillips's firm, is a Clinton fan. The two have what they call polite political discussions - perhaps so cordial because Phillips is her boss, Seto said with a laugh.
Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral is among the minority: a black woman campaigning for Clinton. Though friends both black and white have tried to sway her to Obama, Cabral stands her ground. "Your vote is a hiring decision, and you always want to put the most qualified person in the job that you can find. Don't talk to me about race or gender, as historic as that might be."
Still, she sees the impassioned debate swirling around her as positive: Some women are engaging in politics for the first time. "The good thing about it, as long as people keep a civil tongue in their heads - which is not always the case - is that people are talking about the election." And most have respected her position. "Maybe they think I'm packing heat," she said, laughing.
Nearly all the guests at a recent fund-raiser for a local candidate were Clinton supporters. The host, Cheryl Cronin, is going for Obama. "We sort of nervously laughed at the beginning of the evening and said maybe we shouldn't talk about the presidential race," said Cronin, an attorney and longtime Democratic activist.
The rift between the two camps bothers her: "I don't like it one bit, but I know we'll all love each other and forgive each other and move on and support the Democratic candidate enthusiastically."
The race has also divided households. In Somerville, Nancy Rosenzweig and Lori Johnston are in a mixed marriage: Rosenzweig is for Obama, Johnston for Clinton. The two, who have always been "on the same page politically," have tried to change each other's minds. Each said the other is "annoying" when it comes to this year's Democratic choices. Rosenzweig, CEO of a dental products company, admits she is more obnoxious, putting Obama stickers on the couple's two young daughters and "brainwashing" the older one.
"She has our 2-year-old whisper 'Barack Obama' in my ear as I'm sleeping," said Johnston, a financial adviser.
Rosenzweig said that in political conversations with friends, Clinton comes in for the most criticism. "And when it gets heated, she gets trashed," she said.
At a recent conference she attended, a woman wearing a Hillary pin called Obama "an empty suit."
"The rest of the table almost pushed her over," Rosenzweig said. "The sparks were really flying."
