The TV show West Wing got it correct. If people already view you as a smart-ass, you arent going to change that. Your better off embracing it.

I have said this before, and Ill say it again. I am 100% convinced that if instead of sighing durring the debates, Gore had said something to the effect of 'George, just because you can't do the math, doesn't mean its wrong'. He wins walking away. It would be refered to as his 'Their you go again' moment. Instead, his handlers pushed him into pretending to not be the smartest guy in the room, and he let them.

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not." George Bernard Shaw.

Members of a minority group are subjected to the same cultural training as everyone else. I've caught myself starting to make snap decisions based on stereotypes.

I can't speak as a black person about Obama, but I think he has a chance. Most southerners that will consider voting for a Democrat will also consider Obama based on his positions.

Clinton is probably a wash on the stereotype issue. Some will vote for her because she's a woman, and other will not vote for her because she's a woman. Her husband will also bring and drive away votes.

Personally, it's nice to see a woman running, but I'm sorry that it's this woman. She's too corporate for my taste. A bad candidate will make it that much harder for a future woman to run.

Land of the watched, because of the cowed.

Bowers picked up on the exact same thing.

In the future, everyone will be electable for 15 minutes.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

Speaking of electability, you note the GOP is fleeing straight towards Huckleberry racist populism bullshit.

How ugly would a Huckabee/Clinton or Huckabee/Obama contest be, the crazy misogynist racist versus a female or African-American candidate?

As an Africa-American male, I can honestly tell you that there are more people out there than you think who wouldn't vote for Obama just because he's black, even if the other choice WAS a nutbar like Huckster.  They'll tell themselves it's not that, they'll explain to other people that it's not his race...but it is.  It'll have nothing to do with the candidates' qualifications.

The Club For Growth guys may be scared out of their minds right now, but they figure they can bring Huck  around.

But I'm telling you straight up that if you put ten random white American voters in a room, hand them a secret ballot, and have them vote given the choice between a white Baptist minister who is an overt bigot who plays the hate card and an intelligent black man running on his qualifications and professing a message of tolerance and diplomacy in the world, the bigot will get 6 votes, minimum.

Every time.  The fact that Huckabee's in the lead makes me assume the worst about the electorate.  The other GOP candidates at least try to play off their hatred and hide it a bit.

More at Zandar vs. The Stupid.

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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Love what Oprah is doing to excite the Obama campaign, and while I think I am realistic about it as opposed to being cynical, I still think the country is too racist to elect a Black (or even half Caucasian, biracial) president.

Have we come that far? I don't really know. The southern block of Reaganized states are probably gone anyway. But what about the border states like TN, KY, AK, and especially OH, and maybe even MI? Michigan had a great run for the Reagan Democrats some years ago, and there is still a tendency of these moderates to dislike Detroit politics, and might vote against Detroit (urban Black people), i.e., for the Republican, as in 89s and 90s.

Gore's performance in the debates with Bill Bradley were part of the reason that I was not enthusiastic about his candidacy before the 2000 convention.  I have nothing against Bill Bradley; but I did not consider him such a radical alternative to the Clinton administration or Al Gore as some other Democratic politician may have been.  So I did not see why some other Progressive Democrats were so excited about him (In fact, I was a bit put-off by the claim by some of his supporters that his being a former basketball player made him more electable, because he'd appeal to the "guy vote."  This was the election in which the press couldn't focus on anything more important than "who would you feel more comfortable with at the local pub?").  However, Gore's debating sacrificed accuracy for sound bites and Bradley was justified in claiming that Gore distorted his record.

A Progressive Christian perspective on I/P at Beyond Bethlehem