I love you, but not your candidate

"Isn't it wonderful how men always know what their wives are thinking?" his wife, Linda, said.

What he failed to comprehend was that Linda, who hails from Clinton's alma mater, was sticking to the Wellesley College code.

"One thing they taught you there was to have honor as well as to be smarter than the Harvard boys" like Laurence and Obama, she said. "It's really time for people to get over their antipathy to a woman in the Oval Office. I still think she has a shot, though it's a slim shot."

Catherine Kimberling, 89, had no trouble deciding on her choice for president. Dipping into her son's inheritance, she gave Clinton $575, in $25, $50 and $100 increments.

"I'd like to see a woman as president in my lifetime," Kimberling said.

But try as she might, she couldn't stop her son, Bill, from contributing to Obama.

"He outweighs me. I just sit back and mumble," she said.

Bill, 65, retired a few years back from a job at the Federal Election Commission in Washington and moved to the family home in Kokomo, Ind. He gave $500 to Obama.

He's quite pleased that Obama appears headed for the Democratic nomination. But out of deference to the woman who carried him for nine months, he's "not rubbing it in. I'm holding my tongue."

Catherine Kimberling can't quite envision voting for a man who is roughly half her age. Obama simply does not have the experience.

Could this lifelong Democrat bring herself to vote for a Republican?

"I'm waiting to see what happens in the fall," she said.

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doug.smith@latimes.com

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dan.morain@latimes.com

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Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.