Stupid politics!

Look, I know we are in the all important season run-up to a very important presidential election …maybe the most important of my lifetime.

I understand that this is a watershed moment in the history of world harmony.

I totally get the idea that the next leader of the last remaining superpower will face challenges we can’t even imagine – perhaps including more internationally spawned terrorism, economic recession and a continued, confounding lack of bi-partisan cooperation from Congress.

However, I can’t help but shake my head and make that tsk-tsk sound your Mother used to make when you did something stupid.

This political season has turned stupid.

Democrat vs. Republicans

Neo-Cons vs. Liberals

Evangelicals vs. Mormons vs. agnostics vs. atheists vs. all the others in between

Now, female vs. male ???

What, are we all 12 years old again? – wrinkling our noses, pointing outstretched fingers at each other and saying, “Ewwwww!”

To paraphrase my Mother, “STOP IT! JUST STOP IT, RIGHT NOW!”

Countless newspaper reporters have written that what put the Hillary Clinton campaign back on track was the outpouring of democratic women in New Hampshire who felt a sisterhood-connection after Clinton’s emotion broke through at a diner event in Portsmouth.

MSNBC’S Hardball personality Chris Matthews says the only reason she’s a presidential candidate now (and the only reason she is a United States Senator) is because “her husband messed around.”

Comedian Joy Behar, one of the co-hosts on the TV show The View, says the presidential campaign strategy is clear to her: The men are piling up on poor Hillary.

There seems to be an underlying theme taking shape that American women, nationwide, should vote for the woman in the race because, simply put, she is a woman.

Arrrrrgh. I so reject that type of thinking!

According to the brilliant political columnist Peggy Noonan there are some operatives within the Hillary Clinton campaign who are now leaning toward getting the Senator from New York to embrace her inner female and to drop the “I’m more experienced” motto she so shrilly repeats at every campaign stop.

“One told me,” writes Noonan, “the problem was the campaign had been so obsessed from day one with showing she was a commander-in-chief that they never thought to urge her to be a woman among women.”

That would be like saying all the African Americans should vote for Senator Barack Obama because he too is committing a first – the first black presidential candidate who looks as though he might have a real shot.

What an infantile reason to vote for someone – because of their gender or their race!

“STOP IT! JUST STOP IT RIGHT NOW!”

We aren’t 12 years old anymore. Picking our next leader isn’t like picking teams in a neighborhood ball game. We shouldn’t choose what most closely mirrors ourselves – we should choose using a more thoughtful criteria: True and proven experience, vision for the country and leadership qualities. We should all exercise our God granted right to critical thinking.

Let’s not let ourselves get distracted. The times are too tenuous right now for such stupid games.