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Clinton

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Before I begin, I should mention that I do not support Hillary Clinton's candidacy. At the same time, I do not at all oppose a female president in theory (nor do I oppose an African-American president), but I think that Hillary Clinton is not the right candidate.

While I am more likely to vote for Obama than Clinton in November, I do think that a win for Clinton would be a groundbreaking event in American history. It is, however, given that either candidate would be a first in American history and would therefore be important. I feel that leadership is a characteristic of an individual beyond categorization of race and sex.

Thus, we must find a way to rate the social importance of each candidate's win without simply considering who is less likely to win or who is less capable as a leader - these are characteristics of the individual candidates themselves and not of the minority groups they represent. This is how I can feel that Clinton's win would be of more historic significance while I would prefer to have Obama in the Oval Office.

Let's consider the differences that these candidates would make. Like most campaigns, both candidates have a platform of change, including the modernization of the health care system, improvements to welfare, and many other major overhauls to improve the living and working conditions of the American people, especially the poor and oppressed.

As a woman, Hillary Clinton will most likely focus more (than a male president would) on human rights issues in the nation and around the world. Hillary Clinton has exhibited her leadership abilities as well as her cognizance that these issues must be balanced with the big-business interests that make the world go round, but chances are that she will change the focus of American foreign policy in an effort to reform the worldwide stereotype that Americans are rich, lazy, imperialistic, and boorish.

In comparison, Obama has been campaigning with the same platform of change (and even more strongly so), but he is more likely to focus on internal human rights issues and less likely to dedicate any more resources than the public demands to remedy worldwide human rights issues.

These characteristics are based mostly on simply the gender of the candidates instead of any other factors. In contrast, if we tried to consider the effects each candidate's race would have on policy, the changes will be far more subtle and significantly less important. Current policy regarding race relations is already relatively strict (as it is with gender relations). Since the race of the candidate will most likely only affect policies regarding race, it is less important than the gender of the candidate, which will affect foreign policy as well as the future president's choice of resource allocation.

In effect, I assert that neither racial nor gender policy will be affected by the race or gender of the president. While Clinton will be more likely to favor women in decisions and Obama will be more likely to favor minority racial groups, most equalizing legislation with respect to race and gender has already been enacted, so the future president will not have much of an influence. However, Clinton's gender will affect other policy decisions, namely human rights and foreign policy issues, while Obama's race will have no other effects. Therefore, based solely on the effects that the election of each candidate would have on policy, a win for Clinton would have more historic significance.

Learn more about this author, Sanjit Datta.
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