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

It’s more to do with being raised within Romani culture and, with that in mind, for most Romani groups it would be patriachal.

A non-Romani woman marrying into the group will often become part of it and be taught Romani ways regarding cleanliness and so on. A Romani woman will normally leave the group in order to marry a non-Romani man.

In both cases any children would be poshrat, though the ones raised within Romani culture would be more accepted than those who were not.

Ed: Patrilineal, not patriachal.

Well, what I gave is the reason usually given as to why Lola Flores wasn’t gypsy (neither are her children, both Lola’s father and her husband were gypsies and she grew up in a part of Sevilla where most people are gypsies) whereas Isabel Pantoja is. And this woman I know, who works in the local Roma association, told us about getting a lot of pain because “she’s not one of us!” Her father is gypsy, a truck driver descended from muleteers… her mother also came from a long line of muleteers and both bloodlines happened to buy houses across the street from each other when they settled down, exchanging the mules for trucks. Her parents bought a house in the same street, she grew up with both sides of the family.

I would find it perfectly normal if customs were different for Spanish gypsies and those of other places. They’re pretty angry with our Romanian roma immigrants, right now.

Yes, as long as I agree with their political positions, I’d consider it a plus if the candidate is female/minority. Given two virtually identical candidates (in terms of political outlook) where one is a white male and the other is something else, being a minority is the tie breaker.

While I’m a big fan of her “too much secrecy in the government” stance and pushing for the declassification of the files of Dr King’s assasination, she lost a lot of credibility with me (granted, I’m not a constituent of hers) when she started elevating Tupac Shakur to the same level of importance.

As for the OP, no two people of opposing parties will ever have the same views as me on issues. So since I vote on the positions candidates have, anything other than their positions is irrelevant to me.

I vote on policies and character, not race or gender. If a candidate were to say, “Vote for me because I’m a Polka-Dot”, then I would view this as discrimination on their part and a character flaw, and as such I would be less likely to vote for them.

Not that you necessarily meant it this way, but just to note — a strong southern drawl and bad diction / poor vocabulary don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

That said, What Exit?, most intelligent people with Southern accents that I’ve met tend to expect that certain people will underestimate them because of their drawl. In my experience, they tend to use that knee-jerk assessment of them to their advantage.

Makes sense, I never underestimate someone with a strong Brooklyn or Bronx accent as I am use to it, but I know many do. I believe it works the same way.

I try not to equate strong Southern Drawl to dumb, but it is my first reaction. So far I cannot avoid it.

Jim