Election signals voters' evolution

SACRAMENTO — Please permit me some brief reveling in nostalgia and history. Then we'll move on to other things.

Nearly half a century ago, my first vote for president was to elect the first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy.

It's hard to envision today how big a deal that was. A Catholic! Who would have thought?

The electorate was hungry for change. The country seemed to be stagnating and perhaps even losing the Cold War. Americans were demoralized because the Russians had beat us into orbit with the satellite Sputnik.

Kennedy, just 43, especially appealed to us young people. He injected excitement into politics and inspired the public with a sense of renewal and hope.

And for the first time in 48 years, it feels like that again today after electing Barack Obama America's first African American president.

We've climbed a long way in my lifetime toward eradicating the religious and racial prejudices that fester in ignorance. Here's one example:

I vividly remember as a young California kid listening to white men who'd migrated from the South actually arguing, in the mid-1940s, in Santa Barbara, about whether black people were human. My dad was the liberal, insisting they were.

We've evolved a great deal since then.

Tuesday was an especially proud day to be an American, regardless of anyone's politics.

And if there ever was a "Bradley effect" in politics -- the supposed tendency of some white voters to lie to pollsters when asked if they'd support a black candidate -- it didn't surface in Obama's election. The so-called effect -- which always seemed to me to be more of a pollsters' excuse than a political phenomenon -- got its name from the narrow defeat in 1982 of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in his bid to become California's first African American governor.

Governor's race

California still hasn't elected an African American or a female governor. But Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein could become that female. It's hers for the taking in 2010, many believe.

"If she does run, she's the nominee, and she's the governor," says political consultant Garry South, the top strategist for another potential Democratic candidate, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "She's been a terrific United States senator."

In 1998, South was the strategist who steered Democrat Gray Davis to the governor's office. "If she had run in 1998," South continues, "she would have blown everyone out of the water, including Gray Davis. She's a larger-than-life picture. A towering presence in the United States Senate."