MOBILE, Ala. – “They” tell me I’m for Hillary Clinton, which is confusing, because I’ve never much liked her. But I’m a middle-aged white woman, and “they” tell me that’s who Clinton attracts.

I used to be for Mike Huckabee, of course, given that I’m a Southern, pro-life Christian. That was puzzling, too, because an Arkansan is as different from an Alabamian as a Baptist is from a Catholic.

Still, “they” said I looked like a Huck’s Army kind of voter, so that was that, at least until Huckabee dropped out of the race and left me adrift on a sea of demographics.

It wasn’t the first time, I might add. There was John Edwards, another Southerner who left me high and dry, and Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic whose patriotism, “they” said, was somehow supposed to obscure the fact that he’s got more ex-wives than I’ve got spare handbags.

Edwards and Giuliani are gone with the wind, of course, as is the Ken doll formerly known as candidate Mitt Romney, whose good looks and wholesome family values were supposed to cast a spell over the electorate but somehow did not.

“They” haven’t really explained why Romney failed to catch on with voters, except to hint that maybe Americans weren’t ready for a Mormon president. My theory is that anybody who can spend $38 million of his own money running for president doesn’t have much in common with the people over whom he would preside.

But “they” probably wouldn’t agree. We are who “they” say we are and are supposed to behave accordingly.

Which means I could’ve been for Ronald Reagan, except that I had to be for Jimmy Carter because he was a Southerner and my family were Democrats and besides, like Jimmy, my mama was from Georgia.

In 1964, we had to be for Lyndon Johnson because we were living in Texas at the time, which overpowered the fact that as white Southerners my parents were supposed to be racists and thus for Goldwater.

As for Nixon, sorry. We had to be for Kennedy because he was Catholic, and “they” said that for us, his Catholicism trumped everything else, even the fact that he was a Yankee and my father couldn’t stand old Joe Kennedy.

Being a Kennedy Democrat at age 7 led to being a Humphrey Democrat in 1968, and even a McGovern Democrat in 1972, after which I finally began to question these ties that were binding me to certain candidates simply because of who they and I supposedly were.

Even so, this year “they” have cast me as a Clinton voter because of my age, gender and race. If I behave accordingly, then with my vote and the votes of other like-minded people, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Unless, of course, “they” sense changing trends, momentum, demographics and attitudes, and/or the candidates do things to change the way they appeal to voters. Then “they” will decree that we will nominate Barack Obama, after which “they” will decide who we’re likely to vote for in November.

We could confound the experts, you know, by refusing to vote the way “they” are convinced we will vote (based on age, race or ethnicity, gender, where we live and go to church, how our parents used to vote, how much education we have and how much money we make, plus our knee-jerk reactions to certain issues).

We could insist on weighing the candidates’ platforms, experience and suitability for the job.

We could think outside the box and consider whether someone who doesn’t think or even look like us might nevertheless make an excellent president.

At this crucial place and time in U.S. history, this middle-aged white woman is ready to give it a try.