I take issue with being presented with a petition here on Daily KOS to "Join Hillary if you agree our daughters can be anything they want – Even President of the United States!" This points to a flaw in American political discourse where--especially for Democrats--we seem to be duty bound to come out and vote for candidates in primaries and in general elections simply to break "ceilings" or install someone of a different ethnicity, religion et al so that, if elected, we can can walk around and pat ourselves on the back for striking a major blow for diversity. If all times were the same and we were always at peace and in economic equilibrium then fine, what the hell?, sure--let's all do that i.e. pick a person for their gender or color for the singular sake of breaking every ceiling and indeed achieving diversity.
But times are rarely peaceful and cooperative throughout the world, more and more an expiration date is being stamped on the Earth itself by self-serving criminal polluters and petroleum pirates, the right-wing continues to build a media complex which compartmentalizes paranoids, haters, ruthless ideologues in with low information voters where the grounds of traditional American democracy become smaller and smaller as balancing or offsetting arguments to the right-wing world view cannot penetrate that media compartment to influence the full electorate.
President Obama has proven that the penchant for Democrats to pick a candidate (or perhaps be manipulated into thinking they have to pick a candidate that makes a diversity statement by right-wing think-tankers) CAN just turn out to facilitate the election of a more than worthy candidate to the office of the presidency. But if one looks at the crowds turning out for Bernie Sanders, there is a noticeable absence of significant numbers of persons of color. And no less than liberal-friendly media outlets have been no slouches in pointing that out. Why? Why has Hillary been treated as the heir apparent as soon as she left the State Department if not sooner? Did voters who vote Democrat gush to the press that we all want Hillary? Or were there players on either side of the political spectrum beginning to create this enormous belief that Hillary's candidacy should not even be questioned?
A mother is free to tell her daughters whatever she wants about the potential she thinks the daughter truly has to rise to great heights of fame and fortune. But I for one do not support any kind of automatic deeming of qualification to be POTUS based strictly on some diversity notion. It damn well worries me why Bernie Sanders is not attracting the numbers of persons of color that any candidate would want to see. Are they out there now resigned to installing Hillary to break a ceiling whether she's right for the times or not? Or have many blown their loads on Obama and don't feel they have "skin" in the game this time as it were? If you look for reason to fault me for being concerned, I'm sure a few will contrive some way to characterize me as having offended or having been insensitive. But my concern is vulnerability of the Democrats and the left because victory by Republicans would is too awful a thought to even consider much less be a new reality to bear.
No, I won't join Hillary in helping anyone perpetuate political ignorance based on a perfect world whose needs never change with the times. Times and circumstances DO change, and we can only hope that a person able to encompass the issues of those times and lead with the utmost of prudence will step forward and make all the right moves--whatever gender or ethnic origin they may be.