I fully expect to get over my opposition to Obama

[metalluk]

if and when he seeks a position for which he has a reasonable level of experience and preparedness. After all, the man is intelligent, principled, determined, has great people skills, and is an exceptionally talented speaker. And, since race and gender are non-issues for me, I see no obstacle on those accounts. For that matter, religious affiliation and ethnicity are irrelevant for me, unless one or the other relates demonstrably to the person's political views or policies. In my opinion, anyone who bases either their support for or opposition to a candidate primarily on race is acting in a racist manner. Anyone who bases either their support for or opposition to a candidate primarily on gender is acting in a sexist manner. (I reserve the terms "racist" or "sexist" for people who exhibit a pattern of such tendencies.) It's disturbing to see 90% of Mormons voting for Romney or Greek-Americans rallying to Dukakis or Irish-Americans disproportionately lining up behind JFK or Italian-Americans reflexively supporting Geraldine Ferraro or the countless other examples of such biases in American voting patterns. Women who back Hillary merely because she's a woman and African-Americans who back Barack merely because he's black are both giving into bigotry. So too are men who refuse to vote for Hillary because she's female or those who refuse to vote for Barack because he's mixed race or because of skin color.

Certainly, people in any demographic group have every right to experience pride in their heritage from the prominence of a person of similar background, but, if they care about the nation more than their own personal identity and interests, they'll set aside such shallow, superficial considerations and try to determine which candidate will do the best job for the country. If that turns out to be the candidate with whom they share some point of identity, so much the better; otherwise a person of integrity will suck it up and vote for best qualified person, despite differences in race, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or what-have-you.

Good liberal values, experience, and political acumen – those are the key considerations, I believe. Barack Obama already has one of those three qualities and, with more experience under his belt, could acquire the other two. In the meanwhile, I'll back one or another of the candidates with the kind of experience I believe to be required for the presidency.