Gender and Race is Dominating the Election!

In August 2008, John McCain choose Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential nominee. Since that date, I have heard several theories on his reasoning for choosing the female governor of Alaska. Most of these theories consist of people claiming that McCain picked Palin to win over the people who would have otherwise voted for Hilary Clinton. The more I thought about these claims, the more I wondered about what gender had to do with the election at all. I did some research on this topic, and found that chicagotribune.com claims that the only similarity between Palin and Clinton is their gender. Despite their lack of similarities, the website states that since McCain’s choice, the majority of white women are now voting for McCain, arguably because of Palin. Then I thought about the actual issues and how Obama’s views on politics are much more similar to Hilary’s than Palin’s because of the fact that they are both democrats, and Palin is a republican. So the clear explanation for this rapid female vote gain on McCain’s side is the fact that Hilary and Sarah are both women. In a campaign driven by diversity, Obama being African-American, and Palin being female, this number gain on McCain’s side leads me to wonder whether people are voting for candidates of the same race, or gender as themselves or whether people are voting for candidates with the same views as themselves. I think that despite race or gender, people should vote for others based on the candidate’s ideas, and not outer appearances.