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To paraphrase Dr. King, we should not be judging our political candidates by the color of their skin (or by their gender), but by the content of their character.

Barrack Obama accepted his party’s presidential nomination on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. This coincidence, played up by the news media, makes a great pitch in the newsroom – the first black man to be nominated for the presidency by a major party speaks forty years to the day after the most famous civil rights speech ever. It’s a great hook, but it’s also low hanging fruit. We need substantive reporting on policy and issues during this election, not human interest.

In this election, the media (and perhaps the public) are paying too much attention to ethnicity and gender. Great strides have been made since the civil rights movement, strides that should be celebrated. But this nation is far from equal, and that needs to be addressed. The answer, however, does not lie in parading around a minority whenever they are the first to accomplish something that has already been done by members of another demographic.

Much of the excitement around the democratic primary election is centered on the groundbreaking nature of the candidates. Many people were excited to cast their vote for a woman or an African American for the first time. But isn’t that missing the point? Isn’t this attitude a form of reverse discrimination? Isn’t choosing to vote for a candidate based on a physical characteristic just as illogical as voting against them because of it? Is it any different than voting for McCain because he is a white male?

Don’t vote for Barack Obama because he is black. Vote for Obama if you agree with his stances on the issues.

The same goes for the McCain-Palin ticket. Republicans saw a huge boost after the announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain’s vice-presidential running mate. Some of that boost appears to have come from former Hillary Clinton supporters changing allegiance. The illogic here is mind-boggling. Palin and Clinton agree on virtually no policies. How could a person be willing to vote for either one of them (whoever ended up running) if they were looking at substantive issues? The answer is that they aren’t considering policy issues. They want to choose the leaders of the free world based on how many X chromosomes are on the ticket.

To paraphrase Dr. King, we should not be judging our political candidates by the color of their skin (or by their gender), but by the content of their character. Removing race and gender from this election is the best tribute we can pay to Dr. King, the fairest way to judge the candidates and the surest way for this country to move forward.

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