Politics

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been a lot more aware of the political scenario in the past year. This has been mostly due to the fact that I had a lot of free time on my hand during last summer and we didn't get the best channels so CNN became what we watched a lot of to avoid bad TV shows. As a result, I became more interested and aware of the political scene. So, I've followed most of the debates and primaries, picking out my favorite candidates, being sad when some of them gave up and having to pick out new ones, and picking on the ones I didn't like.

Although I'm not registered as a Democrat, I was very excited to see last night that Barack Obama gained the number he needed to be the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. He is a much better choice for the Democratic Party than Hillary Clinton. We listened to the speeches that all the candidates made (including John McCain) and we were confused and shocked that Clinton didn't offer a better bridge to Obama. We probably shouldn't have been because that's just the Clinton style it seems. I don't think the Clintons would know what to do if they weren't in the spotlight.

While this was shocking, I was even more shocked to read what people were saying about it. Given Clinton's speech, I was interested to see what kind of reaction her supporters were saying. So, I went onto her website to check it out. For starters I was bombarded with big red buttons asking me to contribute and sign up. I'd think that true followers of Clinton would be able to seek out those buttons themselves without having to be hit over the head with them. Not the most subtle and not a very good first impression. If I was undecided how I felt about Clinton, I'd be a bit put off to see that the first thing that she wanted from me was money and to sign up for whatever it was.

But, I made it through that mess and found the blog portion of the website and read some of the comments. I was shocked by what I found. Several people had posted comments, not surprisingly, and quite a few were women, also not surprising. What was almost horrifying to me was what they wrote. They offered support and encouraging, if not demanding, that she take this thing to the convention in Denver. Some suggested she run on the Independent ticket. All these things seemed a bit deluded, but you get those kinds of people anywhere you go.

What truly horrified me was that many of these people suggested and flat out said that it was degrading for Clinton, and women everywhere, that she should be told to get in line behind Barack Obama, a man. They also stated that it would be degrading for her to take the V.P. spot. I have never encountered such a bitter outlook on life and they are bitter. There is no other word to describe such mentality. Now, I'm all for women's rights and equality, but this isn't about gender or race and it's surprising to me that intelligent people cannot see that. (I'm sure that if Clinton had won that African Americans would have seen it as a race issue.)

People are so quick to see things as a judgment of outside appearance, such as gender and race rather than seeing what is truly being measured here and that is personality and issues. Granted, some people are going to judge based on things like gender, race, and even age, but that is not the way that everyone is going to vote and probably not even the majority. People don't want to look beyond what they can see to think to themselves, "Hey, there must be something else going on here that would make people not like my candidate" and to truly take a look at why they are voting for that particular candidate. They don't want to challenge their beliefs, reasons, and reality.

Sure, it's hard to challenge what you've known and felt for so long, but over the next several months I have to do the same. I realized last night as I was listening to the speeches given that I was immediately thinking, "Oh. I don't like John McCain" without having a firm reason. If the only reason why I'm voting for someone is because they're young, or because they're a woman, or African American, Democrat, Republican, I'm not voting for them for the right reasons. It has to be much more than just surface level reasons; it has to be about the issues and solutions that they present.

People are going to see all kinds of problems with the world if they keep looking at it from the perspective that every reason that they get turned down from a job, for example, is because they're a woman or African American. In some cases, it might be, but the majority of the time it's going to be because they just weren't as qualified for the position in any number of ways. They are too scared to face the real problems. I don't think that gender and race are as big of problems as people make them out to be.

It's time for people to stop hiding and start facing the truth.