In the opening of last Friday’s episode of “Washington Week,” host Gwen Ifill said, “Perhaps… In the opening of last Friday’s episode of “Washington Week,” host Gwen Ifill said, “Perhaps we should not be surprised that this historic election sooner or later was going to turn to debates over gender and race.” She was alluding to the controversy surrounding Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy.

Ferraro, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 1984, was removed from her volunteer position in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign after the comments she made in an interview last week were labeled as racially charged and offensive.

Ferraro said that the country was caught up in the “concept” of Obama being a black man who has come considerably further than any other black presidential candidate and that Obama would not have come as far if he had been white.

It is true that these comments were inappropriate from a top staffer for Clinton’s campaign, but the reason that they were inappropriate is not as simple as racial insensitivity. Being black is part of Obama’s persona, just as being a woman is part of Clinton’s. But it isn’t the only part of the persona that is important. It’s a kind of “all fish swim, but not all who swim are fish” postulate. Being a black man is part of what makes Obama the person he is, just as being a white woman is something that makes Clinton the person she is, but it is not the entirety of who he is, and is so minimally concerned with what kind of candidate he is and what kind of president he could be.

I think the problem comes in the almost hypocritical “progressiveness” of the voters who are signing up to support one of the candidates, a progressiveness that is born from both of the candidates’ emphasis on “change.” Voters are so eager to reach beyond these cultural identifications that they blind themselves from them, so that when these identifications are mentioned in the public sphere, there is an immediate accusatory backlash. And this backlash causes the questions to be raised again and again until they are suddenly more important than anything else.

What really made Ferraro’s comments inappropriate was that top staffers for either campaign should not be seen striking blows by saying a candidate has come so far purely because he or she is part of a certain culture or group, or because he or she is a certain gender or race. Yet Ferraro’s behavior clearly embodies a negative trend in the Democrat campaigning up to this point, and that is the de-unification of the Democrat Party.

Perhaps it’s because there seem to be more young people involved in this election, but there is a proud ferocity that has caused the two different camps to champion not only support for their own candidate but a strong disdain for the other.

At last weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, I was disheartened to see the two different camps insulting one another and holding signs that said, “Anyone else but ‘insert other candidate here.'” I am disheartened by the scoffing that comes in response to my lack of candidate endorsement, as if by this point I should have seen enough Will.i.am music videos to have decided which person is absolutely best qualified to run the free world. I am disheartened to feel ashamed for my party, which is eating away at itself because of that ferocious, proud sense of competition.

My good friend and Republican strategist Rock Mulberry once said, while remarking on the state primaries, that the Democrats needed to pay more attention the goings-on outside of their own party, and to the fact that many Republicans were re-registering as Democrats in order to vote in the primaries and to get a nominee who would have less chance of winning against Sen. John McCain and who would further stratify the party.

Well, Rock Mulberry, that is a very astute observation, but actually the Democratic Party is doing a mighty fine job of stratifying itself all on its own.

Ifill was correct in saying that the ideas of race and gender were going to become important in this election, and the debates are teetering on becoming so concerned with these questions and whether or not these cultural identifications are indicative of quality, that what should be the focus – who would make the best president, and who could win against McCain – is in danger of being lost.

Cassidy sometimes wishes she were a fish. E-mail her at [email protected].