First Presidents

The coming presidential election will likely be unique in the fact that one of the frontrunners, Hillary Clinton, is a woman and one, Barack Obama, is an African-American man. If either are elected president, it would make history -- you can rest assured if there is still a United States anything like the country that exists today in a few hundred years that every student will hear about the first female or the first African-American male president. At the same time, though, a Clinton or Obama election probably doesn't mean that much in the larger scheme of things. It certainly wouldn't mean racism or sexism had been eradicated; ironically, racism and sexism may help Obama or Clinton to an extent if women and/or African-Americans support "their" candidate en masse. Nonetheless, I think it's OK to feel a little excited over the prospect of making history. The message that a Clinton or Obama victory would send to the country is essentially positive from my point of view: it would demonstrate that America is not so overrun with sexism or racism that a woman or an African-American man cannot rise to the very top of politics. There is a serious problem with letting history and positive messages influence your right to vote, though, and it must be addressed: those who vote for a candidate on the basis of that candidate's race or gender may have to endure four or more years of policy influenced by that candidate. Unless every single woman or African-American man you know is capable of being a good president, it makes no sense to "trust" Obama's race or Clinton's gender; the only responsible approach to voting is to research each candidate and decide on whom to support on the basis of ideology and character. If the best candidate happens to be an African-American man or a woman, then and only then should America have its first African-American male president or its first female president.

Not too long ago I read an article about the 2007 French presidential election which included snippets of various interviews with "people off the street" prior to voting. That election pitted Nicolas Sarkozy against Ségolène Royal; Sarkozy eventually triumphed after two rounds of voting. One thing that interested me about the article is that several people mentioned that Ségolène Royal's gender would influence their vote; this group included a man who felt it was time for a woman to be president as well as a woman who felt a woman could not be trusted as president! I think it is safe to say that there were also Frenchmen who supported Sarkozy because they would not vote for a woman and Frenchwomen who voted for Ségolène Royal because she was a woman. Surely the same patterns will be observed in the American presidential election in 2008, too: some will vote for Obama because he is black, some will not vote for Obama because he is black, some will vote for Clinton because she is female, and some will not vote for Clinton because she is female. This is inevitable, I'm sure, but I hope that the majority of voters will keep an open mind concerning who to support and observe Obama and Clinton's words and actions closely in order to decide on their worth as candidates.