These days were born from the Civil Rights movement. In an American-as-apple-pie, history-making display of e pluribus unum, the Democratic debate in New Hampshire last week featured Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. It was as inspiring as watching Armstrong walk on the moon.
We have traveled far. It is an exciting time, but it is bittersweet. Clinton, Obama and Richardson are each capable of being a great president, but for them, because of their respective gender, race and ethnicity, the White House is a mirage.
The fact remains that this country at this time will not elect a president whose color goes toward light coffee or darker, nor anyone whose ethnicity is anything but Anglo, nor an Anglo woman for that matter. If this were a country where race and gender didn't matter, the immigration debate would have been civilized. Arabs wouldn't be scared to be named Muhammad. Women would earn as much as men.
Democrats and some Independents are passionate about Clinton, Obama and Richardson, but if any of these win the nomination, the Republican machine that installed George W. Bush twice in the White House will once again rise to destroy the opponent.
Sen. John Kerry was successfully cast as a Vietnam War coward and liar, remember. What can we expect if either a woman, a black man or Latino gets the nomination?
Voters judge these candidates by the content of their character, their ideas and the implied trust that comes with the familiarity of shared experiences as women and people of color. But to corporate America and vapid journalists, whose influence sways the electorate, these candidates are nothing more than products that the media couches between washing machines and deodorant commercials.
Obama's surge in the polls is a mirage, projected in large measure by a voting bloc of white voters, some of whom bow to white guilt. And his fall is guaranteed by another white voting bloc who could not abide a man of color in the White House.
Richardson's credentials include service as energy secretary, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, international crisis negotiator, a mastery of three languages. But as with Obama, if he were to win the primaries, middle America would find problems with his Mexican-American heritage.
Hillary Clinton is exceptionally smart and prepared for the world stage, and yet, she, too, is continually portrayed a cold-hearted bitch. She has endured character assassinations since Barbara Bush first attacked her in the 1991 campaign.
Ably led into the henhouse of political assassination by Fox News, these candidates would be incessantly attacked by the right wing, the most organized, well-financed but uninformed segment of the electorate.
But some of us still dream. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom we celebrate this month, led a movement that brings us to this day when we have a strong and diverse field of contenders to choose from. It is a good day.
But it is hard to imagine that this nation, where equal opportunity remains more vision than reality, would elect any of them as president. That doesn't mean that we should vote anything other than our conscience. But numbers decide the outcome. There are not enough of us registered to vote.
In the end, John Edwards, far less experienced than Clinton and Richardson and less inspiring than Obama, but with the color and gender that is palatable to most voters, may be the candidate selected to face the GOP candidate in 2009. This is not the absence of hope; it is the audacity of pragmatism.
That doesn't mean that MLK's dream is dead. There will come a time when the president will be a woman or man who is black or Hispanic. Clinton, Obama and Richardson are leading the way to that day. ?
Natalia Muñoz is editor of La Prensa of Western Massachusetts (www.LaPrensaMa.com).
