091619
Diversity among Presidential candidates? Identity politics? Voting for someone you identify with? Presidential nominees from the major parties were white Protestants for most of American history. The Democrats cracked the mold in 1928 with Irish-Catholic Al Smith as the nominee. The Democrats broke the most in 1960 with Irish-Catholic John F. Kennedy as the nominee and elected president. The Democrats stomped on the mold in 2008 with African-American Barack Hussein Obama as the nominee and elected president. The Democrats swept the broken pieces into the bin by nominating a woman to be president.
And now:
The Republican president and presumptive nominee is a German-American (and Scottish-American) white Protestant. He is being challenged by a Yankee (from a pre-revolutionary Protestant family and by an Irish-Catholic.
The Democratic Party had an array in the September debate
The top tier:
An Irish-Catholic
A woman who is a white Protestant (presumably English background)
A Jew whose family came from eastern Europe
The second tier
An African-American/Indian-American Woman
A gay Maltese-American
An African American
The third tier
An Irish-American
A Central European-American woman
A Mexican-American
An Asian-American
No matter who the nominee is, this seems like a new world.