There goes my hope...

In today's WP, there is an article which claims being a Mormon or an old smoker would hurt a candidate more than being a woman or minority. We are supposed to be happy, I guess, to see these results. But, here are the issues I have:

We are only a few weeks into the '08 race and nearly every news story revolves around Barack's race and Hillary's gender. Obviously, these things matter. We have yet to see a minority or female run the country. I get it. It's a historic thing. But, in the grand scheme of things, will race or gender affect one's ability to run the country? What our country needs is moderate leadership that brings us together and allows us to tackle the tough issues. While I'm not convinced we are ready for a minority or female prez, doing poll after poll will get us nowhere. We need to get to the nitty gritty and let people see more than the superficially obvious. Barack has yet to pay his Black Tax and Hillary needs to pay her Strong Woman Tax. The only way, to do either, is to allow them to prove themselves BEYOND race and gender. They need us to forget WHAT they are and determine WHO they are. Enough already with the race/gender stuff.

People lie. Yeah, I know it's anonymous. But, if a stranger calls your home and asks you a bunch of sensitive questions, most people will give a PC answer! Even the biggest male chauvinist or racist, knows (usually) that his views are not polite in our (somewhat) civilized society.

If people are willing to discard a guy/gal over smoking cigarettes or being a Mormon, well I think it's safe to say we're all in trouble! I know cigarettes are unhealthy and no, we don't want our prez dying off. But, I'm willing to take a smoker if he has the right answers for our country. Reagan is called one of the greats (haha), and was elected TWICE. He was almost eighty when he left office. Now we know Nancy was basically holding him up and feeding words to him! Okay, on second thought….no old guys. But, to the point, we're focusing on the wrong things….I think ;)