The race for the 2008 presidential election is beginning to get interesting. With the list of potential candidates starting to get larger than George Bush's vocabulary, the chances are that we will have an incredibly open battle.

         While the Republicans will once again field an ageing white male, the fight for the Democratic nomination will, in contrast, be fascinating. The two front runners being Barack Obama, who would be the first black presidential candidate and Hilary Clinton, who would be the first female presidential candidate. To me it does feel disrespectful to continually highlight the fact that both candidates are from politically minority groups; I am sure that neither wants to be seen as such. However this is inevitable; in recent times the issue of discrimination has come to the forefront of political discussion, and will remain there for some time. 

         The idea has arisen that if Clinton gets the presidential nomination then Obama could run for vice president; this way they could cover as many minorities as possible. All they would need then is a homosexual muslem with jewish tendencies, to complete the set. However for now the challenge is very much open, with both candidates very close in the opinion polls. So the real question is, is America more ready for its first female president, or its first black president?

Due to the fact that I am a resident of the United Kingdom, I have little knowledge of American culture and American feelings, consequently my opinions on this subject will not be as informed as I would like them to be. However my belief is that the U.S is not as discriminatory as it was twenty or thirty years ago and so I don't think that either candidate will be hindered as much as they might have been. Racism in America is dying out and so I don't think this will be too much of a burden for Obama, and also the populations which are more racist are likely to be in republican areas anyway. I think that sexism is more of a problem, and Clinton will come across a lot of people who, wrongly, believe that women are mentally weaker and less able than men. However Clinton will also pick up colossal numbers of the female population who want to fight this kind of chauvinistic sexism.


         It may be more beneficial globally to have a black man as the leader of the most powerful country in the world, especially one with a name such as Obama. This would be a great symbol of racial equality and it would truly show how far the U.S has come. Whereas if Clinton was elected, the good it would do for domestic equality would be immeasurable. 

         Of course it is be unreasonable to assume that the whole primary will be based on the issue of race against sex. Both candidates are actually reasonably similar. I would class both as liberals, and both are highly critical of the war in Iraq, however this is a bit rich coming from Clinton since she supported the war in the first place, while Obama was against it from the word go. The main defining factor between the two is that Clinton has had much more experience than Obama, having been Senator since 2000 and the First Lady since 1993. Whereas Obama has only been a senator since 2004. This is one of the main reasons why I will be supporting Clinton for the nomination; I get the feeling that she understands the issues much better than Obama, and I also believe that Obama is trying to write himself into history with clever and dramatic soundbites.

However whoever wins the Democratic nomination, I sincerely hope will be in the White House by 2009, for I believe that the security of the world will be much safer without a Republican president.