Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Will the new president set a presidential precedent that negates future minority candidates?

The basic issue is: "what if 'YES WE CAN', just can't? "

There is a lot of speculation about this topic, because that is all we can do at this point is speculate. It is an interesting thought, though, in a glass is half-empty and going to fall off the counter kind-of-way. Obama is still about two months from being able to effect any changeor make anything happen at all and we are already preparing for disaster. I find that funny and scary and a little sad at the same time. Kind of like a fat chick falling down.

The topic at hand is an interesting one, and is an insightful look at one more pressure that our President-elect must face. The reality that mistakes made by Obama could negatively affect any future minority candidates. In fact, if the "Change" that we elected proves unable to significantly negate the wrongs that have crumbled our economy, it could VERY well do significant harm to future minority candidates. All because he was not able to untangle the train-wreck that he really had nothing to do with creating. I am not going to point any fingers, but I think we can all agree that Obama did not cause the current crisis. Of course we can not all agree on that... some jackass is going to say Obama did it, and of course, if he is unable to untangle it, it will then become ENTIRELY his fault.
That sort of rationale is a bit absurd, really, but let's follow an analogy to its rational conclusion:
You are asked by your boss to clean up a project that a co-worker made a mess of.
The co-worker moves on with a different job at the company, and you are unable to right all of his wrongs, so YOU are blamed and subsequently fired for his mess, because you were unable to untangle the whole fustercluck.
Yeah... you would be really ready to accept that as fair.

However, BACK to my point...
-( politics is such a BROAD topic, I find I always digress a bit... apologies)
IF Obama were to be unable to fix everything, there is certainly a contingent of people that I feel will allow that to dissuade them from taking the leap to supporting a minority candidate again, but then these were the people that were not likely to vote for a minority candidate THIS time, but DID out of total desperation because Obama happened to be the best option. There will also be people that will be a little reticent, for the same reason, but hopefully, as should always be the case, they will vote on MERIT, not on whether the person is latin, or black or a woman or whatever 'minority' for that matter. Haven't we learned that we only need to be focused on whether whoever it is can do the job? I mean, we had an ACTOR do a better job than someone who was supposedly groomed for the job. Perhaps in Texas grooming only applies to horses.
I have to say.... my heart will go out to all future minority candidates if Obama turns out to be unable to turn our debacle around... but we still can not blame the problem on Obama. Hey, here's an idea... if he turns out to be a lame duck, why don't we try NOT letting him back for a second term? NOW... THERE's an idea.