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Remember when there was a hugh hugh emphasis on race in the elections? That was when T Top T stopped posting about the elections; it was disheartening that the United States is not as color blind as T Top T perceived. But after a few months accepting it we’re back with more observations:

1) The Democratic Party is not being smart about this Clinton vs Obama campaign. They know that over the horizon is a national presidential election yet at the same time they are not doing the best to position themselves to win it. It is right now in this moment that Obama has the most momentum. There’s not point in waiting till after Clinton wins West Virginia, or the split the Kentucky Oregon primaries. He needs to receive the nomination with momentum of a solid victory, not falling over the finish line. It will hurt him to wait just because going into November his last memory of a real competition would be a loss or an almost loss. If they wanted the best position they would need to immediately end this race, and the 14 point victory and the come back from Indiana would give momentum.

2) The Limbaugh Effect: Sounds like a title to an episode of the Big Bang Theory but in a close race everything can influence the outcome. Clinton won the Republican vote 54% to 46% in Indiana. That vote constituted 10% of the people who voted. 1.27 million people voted, so roughly 127,000 republicans voted. That’s 68,580 republican votes for Clinton, the big question is with a margin of 15000 in the count for the state how many of those 68k will actually vote for Clinton in the general election. They could have just been listening to Rush Limbaugh and voting for a candidate they think is easier to beat. It is rather amusing that all this drama with Clinton still in the race and all her reasons for staying could be propped up by Republicans who want her to be nominated so they stand a better chance. The republicans are dominant when it comes to politics, I think in any close election they’d win. Look, even with the war and the economy a republican is running even with what is suppose to be two really strong democratic candidates. Maybe we need a third party who can stand up to the Republicans.

3) Saying that as a Democrat you will not vote for Obama if he wins because you are a Clinton supporter, or vice versa sounds pretty snobby to me. Like little kids that can’t get their way. Both sides. The only people with a legitimate reason to say something like that are republicans that are supporting either candidate.

4) This race thing is stupid. Merely for the simple facts that A) Obama is half black and half white – a product of the mixing bowl. B) He was raised by a white single mom and his white grandparents. C) He partially grew up in Indonesia which is a place where both blacks and whites are minorities as well as Hawaii that is, for all intents and purposes, one of the most color blind places on earth is. Stupid to make a decision based on ethnicity, especially when you can’t point to Obama and say he’s black without being WRONG.

5) Not voting for Clinton because she’s a woman is equally as stupid. Half the population can’t be president because they are female? You are the elitist because you think that way. On the converse voting for her because she is a woman, as well as voting for Obama because he’s black are reasons almost as stupid as not. It’s not your job to balance out the votes of the bigots. You become part of the problem when you make a decision based on sex or ethnicity. Ethnicity should not be a tool to keep you down or to prop you a step up. Gender should not be a tool to keep you down or prop you up. America is not a nation that should be making a decision based on either.

6) Obama should take public funding, and both him and McCain should denounce any tampering from other organizations. He promised public funding but should not be forced to do it if the republicans are going to use negative attacks. It costs more to defend negative attacks than to make them.

The Democratic RACE and South Carolina

I'm sitting here watching the broadcast of the South Carolina results and i'm really irritated. They've spent about the entire first hour talking about race and who all the white people and African Americans voted for and gender and how those votes went. I want CNN to shut up and stop talking about race and gender, I might be interested in looking at the data once or twice but I really don't care, and i don't think it's that big a deal.

I might just be too young to care. I'm 25 which puts me right at the beginning of the the generation called "millennials", the generation following gen X. Supposedly one of the qualities that help define our generation is that we're "color blind" or "multi-cultural". You know, I'll make jokes and stuff but there has never for a moment been an ounce of me that has thought that race or gender is going to matter in how I cast MY vote or what I think. (Bill Clinton just bombed on some jokes...) It irritates the hell out of me that the media likes to play up that Obama is a Black candidate and Hilary is a woman.

I'm NOT saying racism is not an issue in the US. I'm NOT saying that there's no gender gap. There IS, but what does that have to do with who you vote for, and this election. You do defeat racism by voting for someone because he's Black, you defeat racism when it is no longer an issue. If Obama gets elected it WILL be historic because he's the first. But in no way is it the same thing as what Jackie Robinson did for baseball, or Jesse Owen did competing in the Olympics. In my head it's not that he's Black and elected president, being Black is just another characteristic of who he is, like his height, or weight or something. I really don't care and the media is trying too hard to push a topic that no one cares about. At least for people my age that's for sure, Facebook survey shows that facebook users are roughly 80% for Obama and i gurantee you it's not because he's Black and not because Hilary is a woman.

If anything age and wealth should be bigger issues that should be talked about. how these groups vote on some of the biggest issues should indicate how these age groups view certain issues. Think... a bad economy, taxes, jobs, health care are all influential to all age groups but in different ways. The 18-29 group would probably be thinking about getting a job, starting their 401k, and just taking a look at what health care is and what the costs are... your 50+ group will have a different need in all these areas. Who the age groups and wealth groups vote for is a way bigger deal than race. So CNN needs to stop spending so much time talking about race.

-end rant-

Informal Poll time:
(I'll update these as i receive answers posted as comments on this blog, or on facebook wall or private mail. Maybe my rant is way off.)


Question 1.
Yes or No
Does race matter to YOU at all when voting for a President?

Question 2.
Yes or No
Does Gender matter to YOU at all when voting for President?

Question 3.
pick 1
If they could stop all this talk about race, which of these topics would you rather hear the candidates talk about?

1) The increase in the under 21 suicide rate, the corrections necessary on a national level to prevent another columbine or Virginia Tech, and what you specifically will change to prevent these happening again.

2) Bush's handling of Katrina, what you as president feel that your role is in a natural disaster like Katrina, how to repair the aging infrastructure of the US, in that moment, and the first day after Katrina what should the president do?

3) The rise in the necessity of having a dual income family, your take on the reality of this, and the direction you want the country to take when it comes to an issue like this and how to control/fix/promote this depending on what you think.

4) The us political system and the addition of a 3rd party, or a revamping of how people are elected.

5) US veterans and how they're taken care of when they come back.

again, email or post or something and let me know how you feel.