I sure am -- give me Condi Rice, JC Watts, or Michael Steele and I'll vote for them in a heartbeat.

Somehow, though, I don't think they are the candidates being pushed in this article.

Could 2008 be the year that Americans put an end to an unbroken 218-year streak of electing white male presidents? Large majorities report a willingness to vote for either a woman or an African-American candidate for the office, according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. But those numbers drop significantly when respondents are asked whether the country is ready to accept a black or a woman in the White House.

Although 92 percent of the NEWSWEEK Poll’s respondents claim they would vote for a black candidate (up from 83 percent in 1991), only 59 percent believe the country is actually ready for an African-American president (an improvement over 37 percent in a 2000 CBS News poll). Similarly, 86 percent of voters say they would vote for a female commander in chief, but only 58 percent believe the country is ready for one (up from 40 percent in a 1996 CBS poll). Two thirds (66 percent) of voters said there was at least some chance they’d vote for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (35 percent said there was a “good” chance, up from 20 percent last May). About as many (62 percent) said there was some chance they’d vote for Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton (43 percent said good chance, up from 33 percent). In a head-to-head race, though, Clinton dominates Obama 56 to 33 percent.

So what we see here is that almost everyone is willing to vote for a black or a woman -- but they have doubts about the rest of the country. I'd love to see the breakdown by party, since I suspect that you would find the GOP voters more willing to vote for either and more optimistic about the country's acceptance of them -- but Newsweek doesn't give us that split.

One troubling detail that the article does not report -- the continuing presence of anti-Mormon bigotry among those polled. You can bet that if there had been even a fraction of this bigotry expressed towards blacks or women, that would have been the cover story.

Posted by: Greg at 01:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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