How "..ist" Are We as A Nation? And I'm Running for President in 2016***

The presidential race here in the U.S. is getting interesting for 2008.  We  passed Super Tuesday a while ago now, and it wasn’t as good as the end of Superbowl Sunday but that’s OK.  The candidates have mostly filtered themselves out and the picture is becoming a bit clearer.  On the Republican side, I should have bet $50 that the candidate would be a white male.  McCain has it.  On the Democratic side, the situation is quite different.  We will likely have either an African American candidate whose gradnfather was a Muslim, or a white female candidate whose husband was a president.  As a liberal individual, I’m worried about the outcome of the election.  I predict that the Republican candidate will win because we are still an “ist” nation.  I don’t know whether we are more sexist or more racist, but we have issues with diversity, even though we have come a long way and we’re more accepting than probably most other westernized countries.  I think we’re more racist than we are sexist and there is a slight majority of women which can overcome a lot of the sexism. 

On the racial, side, African Americans comprise 12.4% of our population. In addition to whites, other ethnic groups can also be (sometimes more) prejudiced towards blacks.  What people say and how they answer polls may be very different than what they do in a private voting booth.  If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, we’ll see how many non-blacks will agree with his platform and are color blind to race.  If Hillary wins the nomination, we’ll get to know how many people are sexist, don’t like Hillary personally, or just can’t stand a tough powerful woman.  It’s interesting that other more conservative counties like India have elected female prime ministers such as Indira Gandhi, and now they have a President of the Indian National Congress in Sonia Gandhi who is of pure Italian descent.

And that leads me to my last and most important portion of this blogpost.  I am waiting for Arnold Schwarzenager to finish his term as governor of California.  Most people would say he is doing a pretty good job.  He’s kind of a Republican with Californiliberalization built in.  But what I think he’s working on, (and I hope he’s successful), is a change to our constitution so that non-native born citizens of the USA can run for president.  If he does, I will run for president in 2016, hopefully against him.  That’s right.  You read it here first.  ***I am running for president in 2016 contingent on a change to our constitution.  That’s because I was born in India.  Why should I be denied the opportunity to serve my country when I was just born 4 months before I moved here?  My loyalties to the U.S. are just as strong.  And there are many who were born here who became spies or terrorists against our country.  Birth here is no guarantee of loyalty.  Depending on potential competitors, I will run either as a Democrat or as an Independent. 

So now that I’ve mad my case for why I should be allowed to run, I would also like to announce that I’ll be running my campaign without the assistance of any campaign contributions except for donated advertising and media.  Hopefully many of my fellow bloggers will endorse me and provide free links to my campaign website.  My platform and philosophies aside from what you’ve already read about on T.I.N. will follow in a future post.  But I'm not going to put too much work into it if I can’t run.  The key is that I’m a non-politician who is genuine, smarter than the current president, (which isn’t saying much), and I'm not rich or tied to big business.  I’m not prejudiced and I have some idea of what minorities go through, but if you were to talk to me on the phone without knowing who I was, you would think I was white.  Also, I'll have just enough grey hairs at age 44 to be more visually electable.  Those factors right there should get me some votes.  I already have 2 votes in Michigan lined up thanks to my volleyball team and I have 12 lined up with my family in the all-important state of Ohio.

Maybe my plan is a little crazy, but then so have been the last 7 plus years of what's happened courtesy of our Executive Office.

+ Atul

Comments

[Dave P]

Atul

I think that the whole team including our subs would cast their vote for you so you can count on more than 2 votes.

Dave

[chancelucky]

There are times when I feel that we'll be lucky to have elections in 2016.

[Atul]

Dave,
Sweet. I'm up to 16 votes using zero campaign dollars.

CL,
That's a pessimistic attitude. Assuming Bush will actually step down in 2009, I think we will have elections in 2016, but the world will be very different, hopefully not too much worse.

[Dan Boyd]

Hi Atul,
I'm not sure why you would jump to the conclusion that if you don't vote for a woman or a black man that it is sexist or racist. In my case I like Obama and may very well vote for him. The problem is that I disagree with most of his policies but I still like the guy and think he would make a good President.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand will not be getting my vote because I just don't think the qualification to get into the Whitehouse is that you were the President's wife or that you are a good proponent of women's causes by turning a blind eye to your husband's sometimes violent subjugation of women who are subordinate to him in the workplace. Hillary is certainly no Indira Gandhi. If she were a true leader like that I would be voting for her. I think the days of Bushes and Clinton's in the Whitehouse are almost over and most people will be glad for it.

Would you be sexist if Ann Coulter were running for President and you didn’t vote for her?

Thanks for tolerating my dissenting opinion.
Dan :^)

[Atul]

Dan,

Good to see you back. I didn't mean that any individual who doesn't vote for Hillary or O'Bama is prejudiced or sexist. What it will help to indicate is how we are collectively. It has shown up in some of the primaries where certain ethnic groups vote heavily for one candidate over the other. If two groups voting habits are similar when all candidates are white males and then the votes shift when one candidate is a female and the other is a minority, there's some valuable nuggets that can be deduced from the data.

If Ann Coulter ran for president and I didn't vote for her, I wouldn't be sexist, I would just be sensible :-)

[Dan Boyd]

Laughs. Thanks for the quick response.

I think it is encouraging to see that a 98% white state like Iowa overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Even in Texas he ended up with more delegates. I think these are hopeful signs that racism is on the decline.

I think running for President is a good idea, count my vote for you too if you get on the ballot.
Dan :^)

[monica Davis]

Well you say that your idea for running for President is a little crazy, But I say hey why not there have been much more crazy things have happen in politics. sexism and racist seems like it's running neck to neck in this campaign so i dont know which way to go on that let's just wait and see.