Oprah Winfrey has been very vocal in her support for B. Hussein Obama. In her first venture into the political scene, Winfrey campaigned for Obama at several events and he is the only candidate that has appeared on her show. Winfrey has been paying a bit of a price for her support of Obama and has been labeled a traitor by women who think she should be supporting Hillary Clinton.
This kind of thinking is very dangerous for the political scene because it places emphasis on a physical characteristic rather than on policy issues and qualification for the job. Winfrey is in a particularly difficult position because if she supports Clinton she will be labeled a traitor by the blacks who support Obama. Race and sex are not supposed to play into the selection process and picking a candidate based solely upon those, or any other characteristics, is a silly way to select leaders. Imagine what kind of uproar there would be if famous male supporters of Hillary were labeled traitors by other men who think a male should be president or if whites were labeled traitors for their support of Obama.
Think of how ridiculous it would be if the supporters of other candidates did the same thing. The elderly and Vietnam vets would label other elderly or VN vets who do not support McCain as traitors. Balding men would label as traitors those who do not support Thompson, evangelicals label other evangelicals as traitors for not supporting Huckabee, trial lawyers would label other trial lawyers as traitors for not supporting Edwards, those who have been divorced several times would labels others with that history as traitors for not supporting Giuliani and successful businessmen would label other successful businessmen as traitors for not supporting Romney.
Ron Paul supporters already label anyone who does not support Paul as a traitor.
These examples are just as ridiculous as concentrating on the fact that Obama is black or Hillary is a woman. Of course these are barriers that have never been broken but electing someone just to break that “glass ceiling” (as Hillary calls it) is not the correct way to select leaders. If one is a liberal there are many reasons to vote for Clinton or Obama and if one is a Conservative there are plenty of reasons not to vote for either of them. The color or sex of the candidates does not fit into this equation.
In order to see how invalid the idea of support based upon color or sex is one only needs to ask the question; is it OK to oppose Clinton because she is a woman or Obama because he is black? Would a person who said that he will not vote for Clinton solely because she is a woman be labeled a sexist and would a person who says that he would not vote for Obama solely because he is black be labeled a racist? If the answer is yes (and we know the answer is yes) then support based upon those two items is just as wrong.
This country is ready for a woman president and it is ready for a black president and there are plenty of both who would do a great job. These two just are not the ones.
