My comment was pretty much what I would have said in a blog entry, so I’m posting it here as well.

I think you’re right Dave. But I decided to cut GF some slack when she said that she was her gender was the deciding factor in the 1984 VP candidacy. It’s not that she couldn’t have done the job, she said, but she was chosen over other people because she was a woman.

Now where GF hangs herself with the rope the media handed her is that she doesn’t concede or acknowledge that Hillary is also where she is because she’s a woman and because, frankly, we still like Bill. GF then buried herself with the Oppressed White Person Defense.

But think about it: neither Clinton nor Obama are radical change-bringers. You could make the case that they’re the black male and the white female version of John Edwards (and I’m still not clear on whether Obama has a foreign policy and what that policy might be). They’re really both quite moderate and unremarkable in terms of policy.

But there is a whole lot remarkable about Obama’s blackness and Hillary’s gender. And I think Democrats are caught up in how cool that would be. I know I am, though in terms of policy, I’m much more in line with Kucinich.

That’s not to say that Obama (or Clinton) is unqualified or even less qualified. It’s to say “put 6 Democratic candidates in a bag and 5 would make a good president.” Where Obama and Hillary have an edge is that *physically* they look different from presidents 1 – 43.

And sometimes that’s what a country needs.

Related:

• Expertinent: The Political Psychology of Race and Gender (From Newsweek)
• When ‘Identity Politics‘ Is Rational (From The New York Times)