What It's All About

A friend of mine, whose opinion I value, insisted, as I was trying to decide for which candidate to vote in yesterday's Texas Democratic primary, that it wasn't about misogyny vs. racism.

Yet, lurking beneath the surface, where all those high-minded subjects -- like "hope" and "change" and who is better qualified to answer a crisis call at 3 a.m. -- were (supposedly) getting the attention, is (you guessed it) misogyny vs. racism.

And, I have the feeling that, no matter who wins the race to the Democratic nomination, those issues will influence the general election as well.

No matter how much you try to distance yourself from that with thoughts about foreign policy, health care, the economy, NAFTA and the other things that affect everyday life for everyone, misogyny and racism won't be denied their role in this campaign.

It was inevitable. A country that wants to be seen by the rest of the world as the land of opportunity for everyone hasn't been the place where women or racial minorities were taken seriously in a quest for the highest office in the land. Until now.

One way or another, we're going to have something completely new in the general election campaign. We're either going to have a white woman or a black man at the top of the ticket.

And that means we're going to have to deal with some issues that have been buried in past elections.

We're not used to this in America. Sure, we have a "first" from time to time -- but, up until now, all our presidential nominees have been white and male.

This year, we'll have a presidential nominee whose candidacy speaks to issues we haven't dealt with before -- like shattering a "glass ceiling" or truly living up to the creed that says "all men are created equal."

Once Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have resolved their fight for the Democratic nomination, those will be issues that John McCain will have to deal with as well. He may prefer to talk about winning in Iraq and loving your country -- but his opponent will speak to what the country is really about -- whether it really believes in equality.

And, after months of all this, would it surprise any of us if the majority of America's voters look at the battle now being waged between Clinton and Obama, and turn instead to McCain in a "plague on both your houses" move?

Maureen Dowd recognizes what the issues really are in this campaign. The columnist for the New York Times says, "[T]he Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts. People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?"

As America has learned -- painfully and tentatively -- in other areas, it is necessary to deal with the past before proceeding to the future.

"As it turns out," observes Dowd, "making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history. It’s all about the past. Will America’s racial past be expunged or America’s sexist past be expunged?"

I can't answer that question.

But I can say this.

I'm glad the question is out of my hands -- for now.