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Originally Posted by skcin
A few comments on the race thing. It's definitely a factor, whether people want to admit it or not.
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Not only is race a factor in every individual's decision, but virtually every other divisible quality or characteristic is a factor, too: intelligence, demeanor, age, religion, party, views (intentions, promises, creeds), experience with this or that, weight, height, hair, sound of voice, use of language, sexual orientation, style of clothing, tastes (food, movies, books, art), & on & on. These factors vary in weighting; you ascribe far more importance to Quality X than to Quality Y, &c. But you (sometimes subconsciously) register the total impression as a composite of dozens of factors -- just as you do when you choose a date or a spouse or a CPA. When was the last time you voted for someone whose personality rankled you?
I think people who say such-&-such quality is "not a factor" in their decision really mean that that specific quality is merely outweighted by other qualities.
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Of course, we all want "one of our own" to succeed, whether it's someone of the same sex, race, from the same geographic location, similar backgrounds, whatever.
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That's true, too.
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But I hope people use that as a guide to help them START their research, not as the sole basis for their vote.
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Exactly. It's one consideration among many.
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I read something scary the other day in the local paper - there are many people (especially in the black community) who do NOT want Obama to get elected. Why? They think if he is, he'll be assasinated within the first year.  Reading that shocked me, then scared me. Now I'm angry & sad - that this could be a reality, that someone in this nation could be so hateful that they would kill our president if he weren't white.
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The nation wouldn't kill anybody; the nation can't kill anybody -- it's an abstraction. (If you had to put a gun into the hands of "the nation," how would you do so?) But some nut might certainly do this. Nuts live & walk among us, as even a brief scan of the front page of the paper reminds us.