fake your death

Obama's running mate?

Hillary? Webb?

I have to admit, when I was thinking about this earlier, I suspected that whoever he chose would need to be white. After all, a double-minority ticket might be a bit aggressive and alienate some of Obama's white voters.

So you have to choose a white guy (or girl) because you need the white voters.

I moved on to thinking about Obama getting the hispanic vote, and how he would need a hispanic candidate in order to dillute the longstanding black vs. hispanic turbulence.

But then, I started thinking about how truly racist that thought pattern is. In making that leap, I'm assuming that blacks will vote for someone because the candidate is black. A latino for a latino.

Even if, statistically speaking, cultural groups are more likely to elect a member of their cultural group, it's a racist mentality.

I'm basically saying that these groups are just simple-minded enough to simply vote for the guy who looks most like them. True, the candidate might be sensitive to issues facing the certain cultural group, but it's the assumption that's racist.

To me, assuming or predicting the motives and actions of someone (or worse, an entire group of someones) strips them of their humanity and perpetuates a racist formula. It reduces people to mechanics and predicts a certain outcome (voting their race) based on a given stimulus (their race.)

I pray that America votes by principle rather than a fixed cultural common-denominator.

For better or for worse, I think it would be unpredictable. And I think that would be perfect.