Gay Leclair

The media seem to be on a feeding frenzy over Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. They are focusing so much on these two candidates that you would think that no one else is in the race or that the Republican Party even exists.

It is not because the media favors the democrats more than republicans, nor is it because they think that these two candidates are the only people who are qualified to be president. Of course, there will be those who say that the liberal media will always favor liberal political candidates. And in some cases those critics of the so called “liberal” media may be right, but not this time.

The Presidential Election of 2008 will be an historical event that we can tell our children and grandchildren about. This is the first time in history that not only is a woman running for the highest political office in the land, but an African American is also vying for the position.

This election year will without a doubt change the face of politics forever. This country could have its first woman or African-American president. Even if neither candidate wins this particular election, it stands to reason that more and more women, African-Americans and hopefully other Americans of other nationalities will step up and claim their right to be Commander in Chief.

However, if we look back at this country’s political history, African-American males were granted the right to vote before women of any color and were elected to political office before a woman. Alexander Twilight was elected to the Vermont State Legislature in 1836. Susanna M. Salter was elected Mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887.

If history is cyclical instead of linear, and if history does truly repeat itself, we will have an African-American president before we have a woman president of any color.

Nevertheless, don’t count the Republicans out of the race just yet.