Questioning the readiness of others vs the readiness of oneself
In discussing voters who supported John Edwards, I have heard/read several sources that discuss the polling data showing “In South Carolina, 35 percent of Edwards’ voters said the country is “definitely not ready” for a black president. Only 22 percent of these voters said the country was “definitely not ready” for a woman president”.
What I worry about is that people will take this poll as the respondents giving their personal readiness instead of them commenting of the readiness of the nation. In this election, I have often wondered if this country is ready for a woman president or a black president. Perhaps I am far to cynical about these things but when I see the amount of people who still support archaic policies that treat women and minorities as second class citizens, I cannot help my cynicism. If someone would have asked me those poll questions, I would have probably answered “no, America is probably not ready for a black president or a woman president”.
Of course, that does not imply anything about who I would vote for. If Hillary is the nominee, I will vote for her. If Obama is the nominee, I will vote for him. I just know how the media likes to spin things and when the news also reported that Edwards supporters tended to be less educated, it seemed like they where saying that Edwards supporters where just a bunch of uneducated misogynist racist hicks. Of course, since the John Edwards campaign for president was not “interesting”, I am not surprised that the media would just brush him off like that.