Democrats AND Republicans - How important is a candidate's race, gender or religion to you?

Not important at all. It is important to me that I vote for the candidate who will do his/her best to support the consititution and who cares about the welfare of all .

I chose my candidate based upon this criteria. After reading his plan from his website I chose my candidate, because he best represents my views on most issues and I feel he is sincere.

The things you mentioned are not things I think are important.

Good question.

To be honest, I do not care about a single one of these things. I do not believe that we should look to a candidates race, gender, or religion, but rather to their political platform, the type of person we know them to be, and if we think that they will be the best person for the office of President of the United States.

The media has no place in trying to determine the winner of the election like they are right now. I believe that as far as elections go, the media is there to show the election debates and results, nothing more, and that is why I dislike the media so much. They will call the race early for a particular candidate when less than 20% of the precincts have reported. I know many people will say, How does that interfere with the elections, and I will say, because people see that the race has been called in favor of a particular candidate, especially voters in states that haven't voted yet, and say, oh, he's going to win anyways, so I'll just vote for him.

I think that nobody should try to influence the elections, The candidates should not attack each other over religion, and that each candidate should present their platform and let the people decide, just like it is supposed to be.

Do I think it will happen?

No.

Gender, race, and religion are the three worst reasons to select any candidate. When selecting the next leader of your country it should not matter if the leader was born with more "x" or "y" chromosomes as well as it should not matter if the candidate is green, yellow, white, black, brown or any other color. When selecting a candidate you should look at the issues that are important to you and your family. Then you should research the positions of the presidential candidates, both the Democrats and the Republicans. There should be a candidate among the large crowd that will agree with your point more than the others. I am a white agnostic male but I support Barack Obama.

I will and have always voted for the candidate that best represented what I felt would be a good or better direction for the country. Someone I could respect as my president and be proud of. This sometimes crosses party lines. It has not had anything to do with race, gender, religious belief(un-less completly athiest),or political party. I do need to feel like they have moral, family, and ethical values in agreement with me. I do need to feel like they are fiscally responsible and not going to add to the already over burdensome taxes and government. I don't feel like I have the corner on the market, when it comes to religion. I am a women, but would not vote for a women I did not agree with. I don't see the point in looking at the outside cover of a book. I would rather read the book and decide after that.

I'm pretty much in agreement with what Pfo said above.

Race, gender, and sexual orientation mean nothing to me.

Religion, however, is something that I look at very closely. If a person is an ordained Baptist minister or something similar, I am more than likely going to campaign against them. I do this due to the fact that these types of religious zealots tend to try to force the Bible into all aspects of government which, even the founding fathers knew was a recipe for disaster.

On the other hand, I don't have anything against a candidate that has a faith but keeps it out of their legislation and voting.

All that said, voting record is the single biggest determining factor for me.

A candidates race means nothing to me. I don't care what color your skin is.

The sex of a candidate is not important either. Although we have never had a woman president. I think a woman could do an equally good, or bad job.

Religion plays more of a role for me. I would tend to vote for a candidate with the same convictions...HOWEVER, that does not usurp the issues. Issues come first then if it were very close between two candidates...Then religion would be a factor.

Good question.

Race and gender shouldn't matter. However... if you get a black candidate, they talk about working on black issues. How will that help the rest of America.. the ones that are white. It surely doesn't help me.. why would I vote for that. If you get a female candidate, they will talk about working on female issues. Again, how will that help the rest of the Americans that are male. The candidates are the ones separating... not us. The president is supposed to view us all as equal, working on every issue.. not just the issues that impact them as a single black or female person. It's not right to say you're going to plant most of your focus on blacks or females. As far as religion... It depends on what they are fighting for. If they bring their religion into it, saying they are going to help lets say the baptists primarily... then no, they aren't worth voting for. My vote will go to the person who doesn't separate.

personally, I do not give a rats hair a$$ what religion, gender, or culture the person is. As long as he is competent then he is good enough. For example, thus far Hillary appears to have it more together then Barak Obama. What's more, she has done a good job thus far in her political career, while Obama is green (experience-wise). I also believe that non-religious politicians are usually the best, because they manage to set their religion's views aside to think about the important things, such as stem-cell research. Many religions say that stem-cell research is bad because it kills life, however they never mention that abortion clinics usually literally flush many of the eggs down the toilet ("life") because they cannot afford to keep them frozen in liquid nitrogen. Whats more, recent studies have proven that it is indeed possible to obtain stem cells from skin cells as opposed to newborns and embryos in the early stages of "life". In conclusion, non-religious beliefs set aside to allow logic a fair hand in decision making has had some very good results, thus proving that non-religious politicians are better than religious, however, as long as the religious politicians don't enforce their will by using religion, then they can be just as good.

"All things being equal, would you vote for a person of color, because they are a person of color? Or for a White person over a Black , Hispanic or Native American person"

No. I do not consider the race of a candidate whatsoever when deciding for whom to vote.

"All things being equal, would you vote for a woman, because she is a woman? Would you be more likely to vote for a man than a woman?"

No. I would be no more or less likely to vote for a candidate because of their gender.

Regarding religion, the less religious they are, the better.

I'm independent. None of those matter. What matters is the individual's history, offerings, abilities, and current behavior during the candidacy. Knowing the individual's true agenda. People can learn A LOT from a candidate's present behavior.

Obviously, a potential presidential candidate that has no agenda other than what is best for America and its people, is great, but that is a true rarity.

All things being equal, it doesn't matter to me what race, or sex/gender a person is. If I like you, I like you because of you and what you stand for. If I don't like you, it's because I don't like you, not because of your race, or sex.

As for religion... if all things were equal and a person who is not the same religion as I am, but believed the same way as I do, I wouldn't care. However, if the person did not believe the same general way, about key issues as I do, then we might have a problem - then of course things would not be equal in all other respects. So I guess I don't have a problem with any of the above, because all else is equal.