* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're exoticand 
different.* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential 
Americanstory.* If you name your kid Barack, you're unpatriotic.* Name your 
kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're "colorful."* If you're 18, white, and get 
an underage girl pregnant "lifehappens."* If you're 18, black, and get an 
underage girl pregnant, you're aregistered sex offender.* If you're a minority 
and you're selected for a job over morequalified candidates you're a token 
hire.* If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over 
morequalified candidates you're a game changer.* If you're a Democrat and you 
make a VP pick without fully vetting theindividual you're reckless.* A 
Republican who doesn't fully vet is a maverick.* If you get 18 million people 
to vote for you in a nationalpresidential primary, you're a phony.* Get 
100,000+ people to vote you governor of the 47th most populousstate in the 
Union, you're "well loved."* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are 
unstable.* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're 
wellgrounded.* If you are biracial and born in a state not connected to the 
lower48, America needs darn near two years and three major spe eches to "getto 
know you."* If you're white and from a state not connected to the lower 
48,America needs 36 minutes and 38 seconds worth of an acceptance speech toknow 
you're "one of us."* If you spend three years as a brilliant community 
organizer, becomethe first black president of the Harvard Law Review, create a 
voterregistration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years asa 
constitutional law professor, spend eight years as a state senatorrepresenting 
a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of thestate Senate's 
Health and Human Services committee, spend four years inthe United States 
Senate representing a state of 13 million people whilesponsoring 131 bills and 
serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment andPublic Works and Veteran's 
Affairs committees, you don't have any realleadership experience.* If you spend 
four years on the City Council and six years as themayor of a town with less 
than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governorof a state with only 650,000 
people, then you're qualified to become thecountry's second highest ranking 
executive.* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in 
aprestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner citycommunity, 
then gave that up to raise a family, your family's valuesdon't represent 
America's.* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", didn't register to 
voteuntil age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated thesecession 
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.* If your pastor 
rails against inequality in the United States ofAmerica, you're an extremist.* 
If your pastor welcomes a sermon by a member of Jews for Jesus whopreaches that 
the killing of Jews by terrorists is a lesson to Jews thatthey must convert to 
Christianity, you're a fundamentalist.* If you spend 18 months building a 
campaign around the theme of"Change," it's just empty rhetoric.* If one week 
before your party's national convention you SUDDENLY makeyour candidacy about 
"Change," that's the real deal.OK, much clearer now. 

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