Hope is Here

Given America's current propensity to hire or vote for minorities simply based on their minority status rather than actual qualifications, I find the following text from Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO editor, to be particularly insighful and carry much weight:

We need presidents who know it is precisely because we are a nation of
talented people that we don’t need to pander with patronizing quotas.

We don’t need faux pioneers like Hillary Clinton. In her 2000 book, The Hillary
Trap, Laura Ingraham wrote of Hillary Clinton: “If you think Hillary Clinton
is a pioneer, if you think Hillary is a political genius, if you think Hillary
is an innovator, you have been drawn into one big Clinton con job.” Ingraham
wrote, “She wanted to be seen as the strong, assertive, mature feminist, but she
advocated policies that were guaranteed to keep women as dependent on
government, unions, and even the United Nations — as she was on Bill.”

We don’t need faux pioneers like Barack Obama. Tell me he’s a pioneer when he meets with Ward Connerly and embraces his Civil Rights Initiative movement, a successful effort to undo the damage big-government patronizing has done to civil rights. Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the importance of the damage the
welfare state has done in urban America, to the family. Tell me he’s a pioneer when he talks about the effects of abortion on blacks in America.

Americans need to be confident in American greatness — with its exceptional promise and opportunities. Hope is here, it’s not contingent on an Obama win in November. We need leaders who share this confidence — leaders who don’t need Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to make them believe.