2000 joke: I’d vote for a Clinton/Dole ticket. Hillary Clinton& Elizabeth Dole.
It only took women sixty years to get the vote after African-Americans (1920 vs. 1860). So maybe in 2068.
An Asian will happen before a Jew, Muslim or open atheist. I saw a poll that said that something like 85% of Americans would never vote for an atheist. As for a Muslim, look at how many people didn’t vote for Obama because they incorrectly thought that he was a Muslim. Imagine a real one.
As a Jew, I hope that there isn’t a Jewish President in my lifetime. There are way too many ignorant shitheads who blame the rest of us for anything that he or she did wrong. Antisemitism is a persistent stink on society. Seemingly reasonable people, like the OP of this very thread, say things like this.
Times change, people change, public attitudes change. At the moment, non-Christians and gays are somewhat ostracised, but that hasn’t always been the case. The “gay thing” has really only been an issue since about 1950, when the right-wing nuts and the religious fundamentalists got together and figgered out they could get a lot of mileage by demonizing it. History strongly suggests that we had a homosexual president from 1867-71. His "proclevities (if such they were) were hardly unknown at the time, they just weren’t much of an issue. Similarly, several presidents (Jefferson & Lincoln come to mind) have been essentially non-christian, or at best, only nominally Christian. It’s really only in the last 50-60 years that these have become wedge issues, and I don’t think that attitude will last forever Or maybe only until the baby boomers start to kick off in large numbers.
I don’t think there are really any obstacles left to having a “Madame President”, except that the one with the right combination of attributes hasn’t come along yet.
I’m guessing you mean Buchanan. His term was 1857-1861. Ten years later would’ve been Grant.
It’s all a matter of time. Al Smith faced a lot of bitter anti-Catholic bigotry in 1928. By 1960 enough of it had disappeared for Kennedy to win. There wasn’t any serious anti-Semitic backlash when Joe Liebermann ran. Bobby Jindal, another dark-skinned guy with a funny name, won 52% of the vote in a four-way race in Louisiana. Barney Frank represents not Boston, but a mostly suburban district in Massachusetts.
I’d wager that Sarah Palin was no worse a vice presidential candidate than Dan Quayle, and that more people hated Hillary because her last name was Clinton than because she was a woman.
By 2016 there will be enough turnover in the list of leading Democrats and Republicans that we’ll have a wide ethnic variety of serious contenders.
I believe it was Christine O’Donnell (R-Non-Witch) who was talking about mice with human brains.
Wash off your typing fingers. Now. With hydrochloric acid.
:smack: Doh!
Yes, I meant Buchanan. Thanks for the correction.
A female president is inevitable. An openly homosexual one isn’t out of the question completely though it won’t be any time soon, and certainly not one of the flaming variety. Despite polls I think an atheist Potus isn’t that unlikely either provided he or she is merely indifferent about the topic rather than making anti religious speeches. I think a Jew is probably not in the cards, nor a Muslim. Wrong though it may be, neither groups are particularly trusted by the majority of the country.
You are looking long into the future. We have probably had agnostic presidents in the past, but a person could not be openly agnostic and get elected in present day America. They would have to lie and go to church.
A woman president is in the near future. The Palin/O’Donnell ticket is coming soon. It is a force that can not be stopped.
An openly gay presidential candidate would get shot. Too much hate in America for that.
Og forbid either Caribou Barbie or CO’D get the nom, but I agree that the first woman POTUS will be a Republican, and likely a hard-right one. As I said, she’ll have to be stereotypically masculine in her rhetoric. Conservatives own the rhetoric of masculinity, and I can’t see that changing until a liberal president not only wins a war, but starts one.
Although SeldomSeen is right that “Times change, people change, attitudes change,” the attitudes at work here are far older and far more pervasive in our society than blackness or gayness or whateverness. Man. Woman. Choose. about covers it; the only question is who is more man.
Well, I’m only 30. I’ve got time. I think that we will see some significant social upheaval in the next decade as the last of the oldest generation kicks off. In 20 years this country will be radically different, and I hope it’s for the better.
Don’t blame me - I voted for Chastity Bono!
A Jew on the ticket has already been done, and without any fuss (that I can recall) - Joe Lieberman, 2004. Chuck Shumer could become Senate Majority Leader if Harry Reid loses (and the Dems hold the Senate, and Shumer holds his seat), and from there I could see him running in 2016 or 2020.
Oh, I don’t know. Americans appreciate the badass, and what could be more badass than demanding ultimate power while being on fire?
Well, OK, they could demand power while being on fire and wearing spiky armor.
And riding a tiger.
Which is also on fire.
Quoth Anduril:
20 years ago, whenever anyone talked about a hypothetical black president, everyone was thinking of Jesse Jackson. Only the very most politically in-the-know had even heard of Obama before, say, 2005. I see no reason that there might not be a similarly politically skilled woman waiting somewhere in the background right now, that nobody’s heard of yet.
It’ll probably be longer before we have a Jewish president, but that’s just a matter of demographics: There just aren’t all that many Jews in America, and one would expect that Christian political candidates would outnumber Jewish political candidates by about the same proportion as in the population as a whole. But we did have a Jewish VP candidate in recent memory, and while he didn’t win, I don’t really recall a big deal being made of it.
An openly gay candidate would be impossible right now, but the trends are changing rapidly there. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, in 20 years, it’ll be enough of a nonissue for such a candidate to be viable. It won’t be a complete nonissue, but then, there were still folks who voted against Obama strictly because of his race, too. It’ll probably take longer than 20 years before we actually have an openly gay President, but again, that’s just demographic: There are more straights than gays.
An open nontheist or a Muslim, though, I’m not sure we’ll see again in my lifetime. That pendulum takes a while to swing.
My Name is Acid Lamp and I endorse this Candidate for president.
The flaming tiger can be Vice President!
I dunno… can tigers live 35 years?
Not normally, but then flaming riding-tigers haven’t had any studies performed on their lifespans yet.
I don’t know. I think a lesbian candidate would have a better shot than a gay man, though. There’s less of an “ick factor”, a stereotype that lesbians are somehow more serious than other groups, and a perception of being tougher and more masculine compared to gay men. Consider all the relatively well-respected high-profile openly lesbian talk show hosts like Ellen Degeneres, Suze Orman, Rachel Maddow and so on; I can’t think of gay male equivalents.
What’s easier to imagine in the oval office, President Maddow or President Ru-Paul?
