Sorry, i meant “future, or non-presidential candidates”.
A couple of decades after we start seeing Muslim city council members, mayors, county commissioners, state legislators, governors, representatives and senators, maybe we’ll see a viable Muslim candidate for president. Consider that outside of a few major cities, Middle Easterners in more than token numbers are a fairly recent addition to America’s cultural mosaic.
Terrorism has hurt their reputation, but for the most part Middle Easterners are middle-class, and assimilating quite well without losing their identity. At the hipsterish coffee house I’m typing this message from, there’s a woman in an abaya in line along with the college girls in short shorts, emo kids, and yuppies. If it weren’t for terrorism, I’d argue that the general perception of Middle Easterners might be closer to that of “model minorities” such as Jews, Asian Indians, Chinese and Koreans. Well, outside of the fundamentalist South, anyhow.
When you consider that Barack Obama has a Muslim father, and a Muslim-sounding name, I think we’re further along than the OP believes we are.
Back in 1960 you’d have had Catholic to the list. I am suprised he didn’t add female.:rolleyes:
Did you read the OP?
(i only ask because you didnt answer it
Why not actually answer the OP?
Your question is of the “are you still beating your wife” variety, so I don’t think many people would, er, jump at the chance to answer it. I certainly won’t.
You actually have two separate questions that demand separate answers, but you are attempting to answer one question, (in the title) withj a separate question in the text of the OP.
There are many reasons why a person who might not be prejudiced against anyone according to race, sexual orientation, or religion might choose to vote for someone other than a member of one of those groups, yet you have shaped the thread in such a way that an answer indicating a “No” to one question appears to indicate a “Yes” for the other.
Since you created this mess, you will simply have to live with what you get in response.
False accusation. No poster has indicated that Obama’s election means that “we aren’t prejudice[d] at all.” They have simply noted that you implied one blanket reality and that your premise has already been disproven in one situation.
No not really.
I think that if any of hem had been gay they wouldnt have been elected.
“Have you stopped beating your wife” implies that someone was.
Why is it so hard for someone to answer “If Clinton was black, do YOU think he would have been elected President?” or “If George W Bush was gay, do YOU think he would have been elected President?”
Because it’s a stupid question, that’s why. For example, if GW Bush were gay, would he have been a governor of Texas? No. If he were gay, it would have shaped his life so that all things wouldn’t be equal.
I am saying that if a candidate is either muslim, gay, jewish, or muslim that they wuldn’t be voted in. So far NO ONE has commented that all the people i mentioned would have still won. (ONE person has mentioned that ONE person i mentioned would have won under HALF the circumstances).
Someone grow some balls.
Does anyone think Clinton would have won if he was gay?
That’s a confusing question. I’ll assume ‘everything else being equal’ means ‘the only change being’, so the answer is obviously, and definitively no for Mexican. The constitution does not allow any Mexican alive today to become President of the United States. If you meant the popular concept of Mexican-American, like say Bill Richardson, maybe. If by Gay, Jewish, or Islamic, you mean something stated by the candidate, or believed by the majority of the actual voters, then it seems almost impossible for ‘Islamic’ after 9/11, and somewhat unlikely for ‘Gay’. ‘Jewish’ is kind of borderline. I don’t think Joe Liebermans religion was a major factor in the election when he was a VP candidate, and Christian Conservatives don’t have the problem with Jews that some others like stereotypical WASPs have, so maybe. The perception was once that stereotypical WASP types didn’t like the idea of Catholics becoming president either.
Is there a right or wrong answer to this one?
Ok, i request this thread to be closed due to nitpicking. But tomorrow i’m gonna ask specifically about the former presidents and the specific minority. Can’t wait to see you avoid those questions.
Look, tomndebb explained to you why you’re not getting what you want. If you’re serious, why not rephrase the question in a way that no wives get beaten. Or if you’re really serious, ask that this thread be closed and open a new one.
Additionally, your attitude here is not making people all the eager to play your little game and stroll into your oh-so-clever trap. Please return that Rock of Gibraltar on your shoulder to the strait.
Plus, you overlook the fact that we have a Muslim President. 
Oh, I see I was too late. Good decision.
I’m sure everyone is all ashudder.
You seem to have forgotten that your main question, based on the OP title, was: “do you agree that most voters are racist, homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-islamic?” Answering the other one you mentioned is forcing other people to claim omnicience; that is, that they can reliably predict the outcome of a hypothetical situation. Maybe they object to that, maybe they just find the question a bit pointless, I don’t know.
Anyway, since I’m all about making people happy in any way I can, I will now answer the question you posed in the OP:
No, I do not agree, absent specific evidence, that most voters are racist, homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-islamic. I certainly have no idea how they might have voted in the entirely hypothetical situation you made up to support your premise.
Hope this works for you, as it’s the only answer I’ve got today.
As was pointed out, none of your candidates would have gotten where they were when they had a shot at the presidency, if they were gay. There are some openly gay politicans in this country, but they represent areas that aren’t homophobic. Like, you know, the Bay Area, or Massachussets. And there are plenty of closeted gay politicians, some of whom have even had their names talked about as potential candidates. Except the problem for a closeted politician is there’s a ticking time bomb in their campaign. Being closeted requires all sorts of half-truths and lies of omission and straight-up lies that by the time you’re looking at running for president it becomes clear to you that it’s impossible. So no, we’re not going to see an openly gay president any time soon, nor are we going to see a closeted one unless there’s some sort of massive cultural shift such that the press and the political establishment would cooperate to keep the candidate’s secret. That ain’t likely to happen any time soon, so no, no gay candidates, and any of our previous presidents wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if they were gay either.
As for being Mexican-American, that’s a non-issue. Plenty of hispanics in major elected offices. Any previous candidate could have been Mexican-American, and won, and it would certainly have been easier for Obama if he’d been Mexican-American rather than Kenyan.
Jewish, no problem, same as hispanic.
Female, (which you didn’t mention for obvious reasons) no problem, same as hispanic.
Black, (which again you somehow forgot to mention), no problem.
Muslim, well, the problem is that there aren’t very many muslims in the US. Even the Arabs here tend to be christian rather than muslim. It’s a very tiny minority. So the odds of getting into major elective office are pretty small to begin with, just because the candidate pool is so small. But a Muslim candidate would have a better shot than an openly atheist candidate. And we have a president right now named Barack Hussein Obama. It’d be a tough shot, but a muslim would have a chance.
Of course, any minority X status is a handicap for an elected official to overcome. Every elected official has some handicaps and some strengths, and to make it to the highest levels the less baggage you have the easier it’s going to be. So a black hispanic lesbian jewish woman (you can be both black and hispanic, just go to the Carribean) is going to have a tougher time than a white straight christian man.
And so? It doesn’t take a wide or deep amount of predjudice against a particular characteristic to tilt a contest that’s near 50-50 in one direction or another. A few bigots can make it tough for the minority candidate even if those bigots aren’t all that bigoted, just bigoted enough so they aren’t comfortable voting for minority X.
Well, none of the answers you want to hear, at any rate.
Well, you see, it’s because I did. You see, members of any minority seemingly have a problem being elected to the Presidency- until they do. In other words, you were able to list those 4 minorities simply because no member of those have been elected- but other minorities have been.
Your question is poorly worded, inflamitory, sophmoric and deserves no better answer that what we have given. Come up with a better question and you’ll get better answers.
Mods: don’t close. Jump apparently is only interested in formulating the debate so narrowly that he only gets the answers he wants to hear. GD is not a blog. He can’t get a LiveJournal if he wants a long-form jeremiad, but no sham-debates please.
I don’t think Yanks are anti-Semitic/anti-Jewish as a rule. Not as much as they are anti-black, anti-gay, anti-Latino, & anti-Muslim (in rough ascending order).