Political progress in both parties?

The big news in politics is that history is being made this year. Men of color and women of pale complexion in both major political parties are in the driver’s seat on the campaign bus to the White House. Huzzah for progress, yes?

When the suffragettes of the 19th century pushed for women’s right to vote, they envisioned an American political system that included women’s voices. When the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century pushed to amend laws that prevented blacks from voting, they rightly saw the expansion of minority voices in the political process. Those visions likely included the Oval Office.

But no one could successfully run for President without others first paying dues and that takes time.

Women and minorities had to first be elected as mayors, City Council members, state representatives, state senators, governors, and representatives in the US Congress , and then the Senate. People who run for President without ever having held elected office of any kind are called war heroes, and the last one was Eisenhower. I don’t think that’s going to happen again any time soon.

The average voter of yesteryear, limited by location and print media availability, knows better now. When the Information Age began in earnest in the 1980s thanks to the World Wide Web and Cable Television, the voters became more knowledgeable--- not just about politics itself but about the world, about other views, other ways to think. Now politicians must respond to that new voter, and we want our politicians to know we know that.

So what do we want? We want to vote on the issues, not on race, gender or war record. It is equally offensive to vote for a black man simply because he’s black as it is to refuse to vote for someone because of his race. Likewise, it is equally unconscionable to cast a vote based primarily on a candidate’s gender.

Martin L. King was right about wanting to see his children judged someday not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Let’s take that thought and apply to our political process.

Gender and race talk is not political talk, not by a long shot. Politics is about legislation and leadership. It’s about how much government we have in our lives, what laws we want on the books. It’s about how government money is garnered and spent, how the defense of the country is managed, what to do about illegal immigration, tax reform, education reform, and energy independence. 

The last thing we should be thinking about is a person’s external qualities. Abraham Lincoln was as homely as they come; FDR was in a wheelchair. So what?  It was and is a person’s internal qualities—decision making, leadership, response under pressure, stance on the issues --- that should matter to the voter.

Historic race and gender events playing out on the political stage are indeed newsworthy--- for about five minutes.  Some day, I hope, we’ll see a campaign cycle where “candidate” is not qualified with adjectives like “female,” “black,” or “Latina”.  We’ll just have candidates who tell us where they stand on the issues, so we can make logical, informed choices in our leaders.

That, my friends, will be true progress.

Published in The Virginian-Pilot September 7, 2008