"So That History Can Blaze its Path"

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

As John Edwards suspended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, he stated that: "It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path. We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history." Indeed our party will.

In Denver, barring that runaway spy satellite landing on the Pepsi Center, the Democratic party will nominate a candidate for the presidency who is either female or African American. Who woulda thunk it? Its been a long walk to reach that promised land in the Mile High City.

Since 1789, there have been only a handful of major party nominees for president or vice president who were something other than a Protestant male of exclusively white European stock. 1928 saw the first two "non-traditional" nominees. Al Smith, the Democratic nominee for president was Catholic. The Republican vice-presidential nominee, Charles Curtis was three-eighths Native American (his mother was three-quarters Native American). Curtis served as Hoover's vice president for one term. It took another 32 years to nominate and
elect another Catholic candidate -- Democrat John Kennedy. It was not until 1984, 64 years after women won the right to vote, that Geraldine Ferraro -- also a Catholic -- became the first female on any ticket. And, in 2000 Joe Lieberman became the first practicing Jew to be nominated for either of our nation's top two offices. Edmund Muskie, Tom Eagleton and William Miller were and Sargent Shriver is Catholic. John Kerry is a Catholic with Jewish ancestry and Barry Goldwater was an Episcopalian of Jewish heritage.

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