Here's what I don't get about these silly "Is America Ready" questions

Anyone who has a problem with a woman running for president is not going to vote for our nominee no matter who it is.

Anyone who has a problem with a black man running for president is not going to vote for our nominee no matter who it is.


Why are any Democrats worrying about this?

Otherwise the current front runners would not be the current front runners. Just look at all the votes going to Hillary and Obama versus Edwards and all the other "white male" candidates. Then look at what most of the polls are showing as far as Americans favoring a democratic president versus the current running republicans. The polls show Hillary and Obama way ahead nationwide over the top three "white male" republican candidates combined.

a woman or black Dem.

I still don't see the point of threads about whether or not the U.S. is ready for it. Obviously we are, or we wouldn't have 2 top contenders who are not white male.

But if the candidate isn't "electable" nobody will vote for them!!!

It's all a bunch of crap. ANY candidate is electable. It's just another lame excuse for voting your fears instead of your hopes.

Prejudice is subtle and multi-faceted.

The caricature that everyone who would vote against Clinton or Obama out of prejudice is a doctrinaire white-supremacist or doctrine Andro-supremacist is a cartoonish caricature of human nature.

A male voter might have a 5% prejudice against a woman built into his mind-set. So he will vote for a woman sometimes, but in close cases he favors men.

A female voter might be the opposite... she doesn't vote for ALL female candidates, but she gives them a somewhat fuller hearing.

And the Democratic party, being made up of human beings, is full of folks who have such preferences.

White voters somewhat prefer people who look like them... they trust them more. Black people somewhat trust black people more. That doesn't mean all people vote their race. But all people have dispositions. So you have a situation where black Republican Steele lost the black vote in Maryland in 2006, but did better with black voters than a white Republican would have done. Black voters do not automatically vote for black candidates, but they are somewhat more open to them. It's worth a few points in the mix.

Many white people who will vote for Obama will do so acting AGAINST a predisposition because they don't think it's a close call. But, all things being equal, any minority staus is a disadvantage. (As Mormonism is for Romney...)

And being a woman is obviously some disadvantage because women are the majority of the elctorate, but a distinct minority of elected officials. That state of affairs doesn't arise from a mass of people who would NEVER vote for a woman. It is an artifact of slight preferences.

Ethnic and gender politics are about the margins... dispositions rather than hard rules.

So they can either get used to it or get over it.

:P:P:P

every program - several times every program - as making him unelectable?

Then he cites the RW email about Obama's childhood a few times, and how everybody he meets in an airport bar believes it. Cites it several times.

This meme strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophesy and I thought Hartmann was better than that.

So he knows EXACTLY what the repetition of that meme will do. That's pretty disappointing.

He misrepresents Obama's positions, too, but glosses over a $500,000 contribution to a 527 dedicated to advertising for Edwards as being OK because it's from "anti-poverty activists". Trouble is, it was from Oak Spring Farms, an investment and savings LLC belonging to one wealthy woman.

Thom has gone down almost 100% in my book for these shadings of the truth.