Is such a thing possible yet in America? Do Clinton or Obama have a realistic chance of the nomination against Edwards? If one of them does take the nod, can the Dems hope to win the presidency against the Pub candidate? Can either of them take McCain?
no
Either of them might have a chance as VP…But there are still too many small minded people…
Just my humble opinion…
Obama, no. And not necessarily because he’s black, altho I think that counts against him more than Hillary being a woman (to Amerka, not me). I think he is just too new, too untried. Even for loyal Dems. Maybe in a few years.
Hillary, maybe… I keep reading about the skepticism that was rampant when she decided to run for Senator. But she won, and by all accounts has completely won over even her opponents. She is hard-working, even for her NY constituency. She has won the grudging respect of even her most stalwart Pub opponents. I think it’s better than a 50-50 chance that she will make enough (regular voters) people see that she is a serious and viable candidate. Also in her favor (oddly enough to me 
) is Margaret Thatcher. The American people have seen a woman head of state (several) and (to me) it is not such a big deal anymore. I think it’s finally time, and I think she can win over enough of the undecideds to actually win.
Sorry for the double post…
Add to Hillary’s chances, if she wins the Dem nomination (likely to me) they will support her, nearly unanimously I’ll bet. That only leaves a small percentage of “other” voters for her to sway. It barely takes a majority these days to win the White House.
Unless the new Dem Congress COMPLETELY shoots itself in the foot… A democratic victory in 2008 seems inevitable to me. Not as sure as '76… but pretty likely.
Well, a twofer of Hillary as Pres and Obama as VP. Seems likely they would get most of the female, minority, liberal and centrist vote. No?
I haven’t been able to find a cite, but I do recall a Gallup poll some years ago that showed that more women opposed a woman President than men.
A few days ago, I heard Obama’s famous speech on the radio.
I found it rather interesting - it sounded as if he was pitching for bi-partisan support, which actually makes a lot of sense.
Being from the UK, I am not fully up to speed with US politics, but the concept of clearing up the current mess without finger pointing could be appealing.
He could appeal to both a sophisticated and an unsophisticated electorate, because to the former he is (or appears to be) offering a cross party compromise, and to the latter because one could do a lot worse.
At present, the most damaging thing I can think to say about Obama, is that he might turn out to be another Tony Blair.
@Der Trihs, I’ve also seen stuff about women not being that keen on female politicians.
Indeed, I personally think that we’re further away from getting a female president than a black one. Women don’t want women as the president, getting an abortion, etc. Men are generally more supportive of these.
There may still be bigots in the country, but there’s a lot more women.
I like Obama but I think he needs to spend a few years letting the public know who he is. Already the media machine is slamming him. When he was running for Senator I heard a black lady on TV say he wasn’t really black because he didn’t grow up in the black culture. Huh???
I’m not a Hillary fan. She seems like a political opportunist rather than a person of genuine character. I grudgingly admit that a person with political savvy might be able to get more done than someone with loads of character without the political tools.
I think the smart move would be for either of them to go for VP now with a possible run in eight years.
I’m not sure, but as a person who generally prefers the Democrat’s platforms over the Republicans, I’m uncomfortable risking the White House to test if America’s bigotry has waned enough.
Honestly I think that these issues (skin color and gender) matter more to the talking heads than to the public at large.
Reminds me about the buzz at the end of the Bears’ NFC Championship game over the fact that Lovie Smith became the first Black Head coach to make it into the Superbowl. Know what, he was Black for all of the last two years too and no one really gave a sh … a … a shucks at all. Only talk was winning and losing and whether he was right to stand by his QB or if he should’ve canned Tank Johnson. Now it’s all about his being Black? The fans couldn’t care less; they care if the team wins or loses, that’s all. Likewise for running for President. They identify with and are inspired by candidates based on what they say and how they say it.
But dang, look at this field, both sides: besides these two we have a Hispanic and on the other side, a Morman, an Italian, and a leading contender who wasn’t born in the US (even though he is a by birth US citizen) (:)) Wottacountry.
The media needs to get over it.
I wish I agreed with you. While I think it exciting that the 2 leading Dem candidates might be a black and a woman, I really would be surprised if either of them could pull a majority. I think there is a ton of relatively lower-level prejudice out there, especially once you get out of the liberal big cities. And with both ofthem, folks could make up reasons to not support them to mask their prejudice - he lacks experience and she, well, something related to her husband.
I think younger people might be less prejudiced, but remember how poorly they tend to turn out compared to their elders. I still think it is a few elections too early, but I could be wrong. Perhaps we have neared a “tipping point” beyond which rapid progress could be made.
Sad to say, I doubt it. I don’t care what people tell poll takers, there are many who will not vote for a woman or black as president. In addition, Hillary Clinton starts with a large group who resent her “just because.” Also she is a Clinton and a lot of people are tired of Clintons.
Obama is black, which is enough for many, and his short, national, political career makes it easy to use “inexperience” as the reason to vote against him.
Nomination? Maybe. Presidency? No. It’s too bad, seeing as Hilary has eight years of experience with the job.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I am not pie-in-the-sky here. Of course there is prejudice, and some not so low-level. But prejudice usually works in a very particular way right now. It is what we all use to pre-judge a person in advance of having any other information to go by. If all I know about you is that you are French-Canadian, then I may make some assumptions about you, assume that you like poutin, for example, and of course hockey. Once I get to know you, then those prior assumptions are irrelevent to actual knowledge. If you turn out to hate gravy and cheese over fries and hate hockey but love water polo, then that forms my image of you, even if I maintain my other prejudgements about French-Canadians in general.
Even the bigot will have his personal freinds, those who he actually knows, who are of group X who he says “isn’t like the rest of them.”
The election season will get these people into our living rooms. We will know some sense of them more than these bits of information (skin color and gender and religion) alone. If what we learn reinforces our prejudgements then those prejudgements will become cemented, if not, well we will go beyond and judge based on percieved sense of character and of leadership capacity.
Perhaps. But it seems undeniable that at least a large portion of the pub will crow about black support for Obama and female support for Hillary. And either will be noted to be either an instrument or indicator of change. I don’t think they can risk distancing themselves enough from these groups to appeal to folks who don’t particularly want things to change …
WaPo-ABC poll (items 26-29) has Hillary beating McCain, 50-45%, Hillary over Rudy, 49-47%, Obama over McCain 47-45%, Rudy over Obama, 49-45%.
I saw a poll the other day showing Hillary’s support was a good deal stronger among women than men. This morning’s kinda busy, but I’ll see if I can find it later.
I tend to agree with you here. Major cities and the surrounding metro areas are progressive enough to vote for a woman/black candidate. It’s what’s in between these cities that scares me. Go to any po-dunk county, any-state USA and it becomes a hard sell.
No. It’s going to be some charismatic governor from somewhere.
I really doubt either of them could win at this point in time. Right off the bat you can kiss the votes across the whole of the South goodbye and thats before they even get started campaigning. Sure the relatively large black population would probably vote for Obama but they are still a minority population wise. It might be a pretty idea to look at some of these polls where Clinton or Obama win, but I don’t put much stock in them. When the actual votes come and people are in the booths all that wishful thinking disappears and the reality will become quite apparent.