Dems: We've come a long way, baby!

Dems: We've come a long way, baby!
By Matt Stearns and Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007


BOONE, Iowa — Twenty years ago, when a black man was running for president and a woman was considering it, the two were viewed mainly through the prism of identity politics: What would Jesse Jackson's campaign mean to black political ascendancy? What did Pat Schroeder mean to the women's movement?

Neither really expected to win; both were most valuable as spot checks for the state of the American psyche when it came to minorities and political power. Schroeder's testing of the waters is remembered chiefly for the tears she cried when she announced she wouldn't run.

Now, the two top candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman, Hillary Clinton, and a black man, Barack Obama. Both fully expect to win. Both embrace their identities, but that's hardly the driving force of either candidacy.

Strikingly, several Democratic voters interviewed this week in the mostly white, early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire said they stopped consciously thinking about either candidate's race or gender months ago as they watched Clinton and Obama campaign.

Some voters said they consider ending the Iraq war so pressing a priority that it has pushed aside once-urgent social considerations.

"I'm more interested in putting the right person in office," said Bill Bushore, a small-business owner who attended a Clinton rally at the Gigglin' Goat restaurant in Boone, Iowa. He's deciding between Clinton and Obama. "At this point, a woman or a minority is a non-issue for me. I just like Hillary and Obama's approach to speaking in common-sense terms."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/20442.html