12:59 AM by 
Why is it the most important thing for some people is that the candidate has the same religion as you, or talks the same way, or has the same skin color? Would most of America be happy with a moron they identified with and felt was most similar to them, even if it meant the country was being run into the ground? Do their similarities trump anything, even performance and ability? And in today’s world where so many people are influenced by mass media and group-think, doesn’t the lack of independent thought result in the breakdown of true democracy? You can’t have real democracy if among the public too many people are bigots, xenophobes, or idiots; at some point the system breaks down that way. Check out the article below about the problems his campaign is facing in talking to voters who simply can’t bring themselves to vote for a non-White Christian male. Also, check out this article about The Bradley Effect. Finally, here is a somewhat related Rolling Stone article about what this election is showing about America, not only in people’s hesitancy towards Obama, but also towards Sarah Palin. Excerpts below.
Article link: McEntee is president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and a leader in the AFL-CIO’s $200 million 2008 election program. Speaking at a labor rally in Ohio recently, his frustration about the reluctance, or refusal, of some white union members to support Obama spilled into the open.
“When it gets real bad, and they never — with this one — look you in the eye, ‘Well, I can’t vote for him,’ ” McEntee told the diverse union audience. “This doesn’t even come out in code — it comes out like this: ‘I can’t vote for him because he is a black man. He’s not one of us.’ Well, sisters and brothers, when you hear that, you know what you ought to say? This is what I say: ‘That is bull—-! That is total, absolute bull—-!’ ”
The AFL-CIO says its campaign will include 70 million phone calls to union households in key presidential and congressional battleground areas, as well as 25 million mail pieces. Some of those rebut persistent but false rumors that Obama isn’t a Christian, or wasn’t born in the United States — or was sworn in to the U.S. Senate with his hand on a Quran, not a Bible. (The mailing shows Obama being sworn in by Vice President Cheney, his hand on a Bible.)
That those rumors persist so close to Election Day frustrates the Obama campaign and its allies. “You go and you talk to a member — I’ve talked to some — ‘Do you support Barack Obama? You know his record, his record is good for working men and women,”‘ McEntee relates. The member might answer, “‘Gerry, I know, I like you, but he’s a Muslim. Barack Obama is a Muslim,’ ” McEntee says. “But he’s not even a Muslim; he’s a Christian!”
