A Woman or Minority President?

By Jeff - March 14, 2007

Is it time for a woman or minority to be president?

Shortly after Barack Obama hinted that he would throw his hat into the ring for president, there was an article in our local newspaper that asked the question; “is it time for a woman or minority president?” I gotta tell you, I was a tad aggravated by the answers that were printed.

“Yes, it’s about time, it’s 2007 after all!”

“Yes, I love the idea of a woman president.”

The rest of the answers were basically the same.

I would like to make the following disclaimer – I love minorities, and I love women (I love them so much, I married one (so did my wife –well, marry a minority, that is - you can see that by my picture))! So please don’t get on me for being a bigot or sexist… but …

What on Earth does it being 2007 have to do with having a person of color or woman in a political office? I am all for someone other than a white male (and nothing against them either, just that’s all there’s been so far) sitting in the White House. However – I do have a problem with wanting to elect someone, regardless of their ability or ideology, simply because “it’s about time” to get someone in there.

This is nothing more than Affirmative Action re-rearing its ugly head. Reverse racism at its best. Of course, I can see how you’d want to support one of “your own”. Sure, it’d be great to have a black person make a serious and legitimate run for the presidency. However, I will NOT vote for Al Sharpton simply because he is black. Yeah, I love to listen to Reverend Al speak. He certainly livens up the otherwise boring Democratic debates, but let’s be serious, Sharpy is just nutty. Heaven help us if he actually got the nod. In the same vein, I can see how women would be glad to have a woman to vote for on the ballot. But – we must ask ourselves, is it better to have a woman (or a minority) on the ballot, or is it better to have someone qualified on the ballot? (Let’s not be putting words in my mouth – I am not saying that women and minorities are not qualified. You know what I mean here)

This manner of thinking is very problematic. It reminds me of the St. Paul (MN) Fire Department’s dilemma of a few years ago. Due to Affirmative Action rules, the department was required to have its employee demographic reflect the city of St Paul’s demographic make-up. So – if 1.4% of St Paul residents were Jewish, the SPFD had to have 1.4% of its firefighters be Jewish (and so on). Failure to do so resulted in fines or loss of funding. Again, I have no problem with this, provided that you have enough applicants to make up the 1.4%!!! The problem the SPFD was facing is that it did not have enough qualified minorities applying for the jobs. They were faced with lowering the requirements in order to get more recruits.

Now, one must ask, who benefits from the lowering of requirement? After all (no offense ladies), if you are a female firefighter, GREAT for you, but if you got in because of this government regulation, and now I die in a fire because you aren’t strong enough to drag me to safety, I’m suddenly not very pleased with you in your new job.

So – back to politics – If Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, Barack Obama or Cynthia McKinney (don't get me started on her) want to be president, go ahead, they may even have my support, but only because they EARNED it. If I just want to thumb my nose at “the Man”, I’ll vote for Larry, Curly and Moe again (which I have actually done in the past).

That's the Soapbox for today, Thanks for reading.

Have a good day.
Jeff