Would a political candidate's race or gender influence your vote?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this thread the OP asks if women are statistically more likely to vote for female political candidates.

I’d like to do a poll here* about the issue.

Here’s the thing: I think it would be good for the United States to have a woman president, and even better for the country to have a black president. ( I am a woman, but not black.) I’m not sure where exactly this feeling comes from, but I do think that as a diverse culture, we should have more diverse leadership than we do. Honestly, I feel like feminism had done its job pretty well and that a female president wouldn’t change a whole lot in this country, but I do feel like having a black president would…I don’t’ know…empower (?) the black community**, and might improve race relations in this country (but maybe I’m an idealist).

So, here’s the poll:

Would a candidate’s sex or ethnicity influence your vote? Would you be more likely to vote for a minority (as long as their views were not too far from your own) to influence the balance of power in this country?

*If this ends up in GD, so be it.

**I do know that there isn’t really a “black community” per se, but you get my gist.

2

I have no problem voting for minority candidates that come close to representing my views on things. I’ve voted for them in the past, I’ll vote for them in the future. Women, OTOH…I have yet to vote for a female candidate for any serious office, for several reasons. First, very few of them have political positions even remotely comparable to mine. In fact, both of my Senators hold views pretty much 180 degrees from mine on a number of important issues. Second, I have never had a female boss who was worth spit. This tends to irrationally color my opinion of females in the Hot Seat. Other offices, up to the VP…fine. The Presidency…nope. Not a rational decision, but there you go. Find me a female candidate with a strong libertarian background who knows what has to be done to make the system work, but respects the rights of the people to be left alone as much as possible, who favors a smaller government, respects gun rights, is pro-choice and pro-SSM, with a healthy respect for both business and the environment and maybe I’ll change my mind.

3

It would influence me negatively, if they were running specificaly on their ethnicity or sex.

4

Well, sure. But that wasn’t really what I mean. More that, given a choice between two candidates that don’t share your views exactly, would you be more likely to vote for one or the other based on race?

5

Absolutely not an issue with me. My city councillor (AKA Alderman), for whom I’ve voted twice, is a Lebanese immigrant. So what? He’s a fiscal conservative, who is a hard working, and represents my views on most issues. He’s even answered my emails personally on occasion.

I can’t remember ever having a woman on the ballot for provincial or federal elections in my riding. But if I believed she was the best person for the job, who shared most of my viewpoints, then that’s all that would matter.

6

Like Harmonious Discord, I would be negatively affected if a candidate used his/her ethnicity or sex as a platform issue in and of itself.

Having said that, I’ve voted for both minority and female candidates, and would have no problem doing so again. (Full disclosure, in case it matters: I’m a Black, gay man.) (Hell, I’m a liberal (putative) Democract, and I once voted for a Republican woman for statewide office. She wasn’t running for governor or anything like that, but she was pro-choice, and her Democratic opponent was not.)

Now, if there were two candidates of various ethnicities and/or sexes who both didn’t share my views exactly? That’s difficult to answer in the abstract; it would depend, primarily, on the degree to which each candidate’s views varied from mine and on the particular issue(s). Even then, it might be a tough call.

I’d like to add that I think it’s interesting–though not that unusual, in my experience–that you wondered if having a Black president would “empower” the Black community (and thanks, BTW, for your clarification re “black community”). This is probably a subject for a different thread, but I’ll toss in my opinion that no, having a Black president would do absolutely nothing in terms of “empowering” the Black community, or, rather, those segments of the Black community (communities?) that are in dire need of some empowerment.

I say this as someone who’s lived in a city (Philadelphia, PA) that elected two Black mayors (the first one in the '80’s–MOVE bombing, anyone?–and the second in the '90’s, who is nearing the end of his second term) and that, incidentally, has a Black police chief. I don’t live there anymore (and probably won’t ever again), but I do have ties there, and I think it would be obvious to even the most casual observer that this hasn’t helped those on the bottom rung of the Black community ladder advance to any appreciable degree. This is just anecdotal, as I haven’t conducted a sociological study of Philly with these factors in mind, so perhaps there’s evidence that will prove me wrong. Seriously, though, I doubt it.

7

I could be pedantic and note that you’re asking about both “sex” and “gender” which are two different concepts, but instead I’ll just answer the question.

Race I don’t care anything about in a candidate. Sex (meaning physical sex) may have some small measure of influence in my decision-making process if the candidates are of generally equal merit otherwise. I would be slightly more likely to vote for a woman than a man because of the historical under-representation of women in the American political process. Gender (psychological/emotional gender) would be a huge factor for me. If I knew that a transgendered person were running for office I’d be extremely inclined to vote for them because of the non-existence of any representation in the political process. They’d have to be a complete washout otherwise not to get my vote. Not that you asked but LGB candidates also get extra points because of the under-representation issue.

8

Nope. Unfortunetly though, alot of my family members do.

9

Yup. In any race (esp primaries) when I can’t decide between two candidates, I will vote for the skirt or the non-white. Fortunately, such tie-breakers are rare.

10

In my case - the answer is absolutely not. I vote the issues and that’s it.

Why? I agree with the above posters that I would like to see a black, woman, or gay president. I think it would advance our society - and honestly the preponderance of old white men in charge is disturbing to me.

That said, I totally disagree with a racist who would vote against someone because they’re black. I totally disagree with a sexist who would vote against someone because they’re female.

Since I disagree with these actions, I can’t turn around and essentially do the same thing.

Now that I’ve written that - it seems like (the way I’ve just framed it) this is remarkably similar to the affirmative action debate. I tend to favor a complete and total merit-based approach* - which is the same way I decide between candidates.

  • Please don’t let this hijack this thread - I do realize that there are socioeconomic factors which are more prevalent in minorities and which can inhibit success. I’m just very conflicted about how to address these problems (generally preferring to address them at the source rather than after the fact) - that’s why I lean against Affirmative Action.
11

I wouldn’t vote for a non-white into a high office. We saw how those people handled the Southern state governments during Reconstruction. No way, no how!

And women? I think they’d faint when they realized how hard the job is. Except during PMS where they’d declare war on every country.

In all seriousness, of course I won’t care. Hawaii has a woman governor and a majority of the legislators are non-white.

As an interesting aside, I wonder if non-whites would favor a non-white exclusively? Would other races vote for their own races at a higher rate than whites would vote for whites?

When I lived in Nebraska, there was a big race in Omaha (mayor or something, TV news story about 10 years ago, no cite). One opponent was white, one was black. The white won, leading some black leaders to quip “I guess they voted by race”. It turned out that 65% of whites voted for white candidate. 95% of blacks voted for the black candidate.

Who voted by race?

12

After clarification. No, I would still vote for the one that supported the most important of my views, or at least did the least against my positions.

13

If there were two candidates that I saw as equal, but one was a minority and/or female and the other was a white man, I would choose the minority/female. The reason just being because things have been run by white dudes for so long that a change would be nice. Also, I like to think that prejudice is losing the battle, and a minority or a woman as president would be kind of symbolic that we are advancing.

If it were a battle between a white woman or a black man, I’d choose the black man. To me, blacks have had the biggest uphill battle for equality.

Also, the president jokes on late night TV might be a lot more palatable. A female president would get labeled a “bitch,” just for being female and in charge, and the jokes would be tired and old within the first week. “Black jokes” about the president would probably be considered distasteful by most people and, therefore, become scarce. One of the reasons I’m looking forward to the next election is because I’m tired of the same old “dumb white guy who looks like a chimp and acts like one too” jokes. For me, the most annoying thing about George W. Bush is the relentless and repetitive complaining by the general public. Wrong or right, it’s a broken record that I’m very tired of hearing.

14

I am very happy to say that neither race nor gender would influence my vote.

I am sad to say that if someone spoke with a heavy accent or sounded ghetto I would be less likely to treat the candidate seriously for a higher office. I have the same hang-up about a strong southern drawl. This is my problem and not their’s but I do have this hangup. I would have to look pass my knee jerk reaction to take a close look at their record.

Jim

15

There is nothing wrong with this reaction. A candidate needs to be able to speak clearly and intelligibly to get their points across. The smartest person in the world will come across as stupid if they have bad diction or a poor vocabulary.

16

Ya know, in thinking about this some more I realize it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to prefer a female/gay/trans candidate and not give the same preference to a non-white office-seeker. I think that this is largely due to the fact hat I have rarely been given the choice between a white and a non-white candidate so the question hasn’t really been presented to me that often. In all of the elections in which I’ve been aware of the race of the candidates, I think there have been six instances where a “minority” was on the ballot against a white, and four of those times it was the same candidate (Carol Moseley Braun in her two Illinois Senate primaries and general elections and I voted for her all four times not because she was black or a woman but because I couldn’t fathom the notion of voting for her opponent). The other times my choice was between an open lesbian and a straight virulently homophobic African American man so that was a no-brainer, and of course I voted for Al Sharpton in the last Democratic presidential primary because by the time of the primary in Wisconsin Kerry already had it pretty much locked up so I wanted to skew the statistics a little.

17

Often and usually. Race moreso than gender.

Your race will get my attention. Your platform will seal my allegiance.

That said, I couldn’t stand it when Clarence Thomas passed the nomination process, was bitterly disappointed when Cynthia McKinney lost her seat to a blackmale conservative-in-all-ways-but-party-affiliation this year, and I can’t imagine the circumstances in which I’d for Alan Keys.

18

I vote issues where I can. But there’s all kinds of people I’ve never heard of on the ballot sometimes. (Like Party Convention Delegates.) In those cases, I will vote for a female or ethnic sounding name, because old white men have been in power in this State for far too long.

19

By the way, this thread reminds me of that episode of Will & Grace where Will supports the gay candidate and Grace supports the Jewish woman until the gay candidate says appalling things about the homeless and the Jewish woman talks about how great it is to see so many white faces in the crowd. They decide not to vote at all until they hear there’s a black guy running and they bolt for the polls.

20

Disclaimer: I vote in Spain, not the US.

Most of our elections are “closed list”, but we have a few where you do vote for individuals. Also, in the closed-list elections you know that the people at the top of the list are the ones more likely to get the job (for example, if there’s 10 seats in city hall, each party’s list will have 10 names plus 3 “replacements”, but I’ve never heard of a single party getting all the seats!).

I evaluate candidates based on their -isms and apparent level of stupidity; I’m allerd¡gic to discrimination and quotas. An example. If some candidate is gypsy and one of the things (s)he talks about is how to get more gypsies to stay in school beyond age 10 while not losing their culture… that’s great. If the same person wants to cart ‘em up and push them to school, they lose my vote. If they want free houses because “boohoo, the payos have been so bad to us, boohoo!”, vote lost.
If a candidate who is neither a gypsy nor the child of one (it’s matrilineal, if your Pa is gypsy and your Ma no, you aren’t a gypsy) nor married to one singles out gypsies in his/her proposals… then I’d like to know what the heck has (s)he been smokin’ but again vote lost.