Identity politics may be failing

The big news out of Chicago was not that it elected its first black lesbian mayor, but that the race drew less than a third of the city's voters, an historic low.

Unofficially, 509,624 people voted in a city of 2,695,598 (as of 2010).

The 32% turnout was below the 33% turnout when Richard M. Daley won his sixth and final term.

In fact, the final election had a lower turnout than primary did this year.

The Herald and Review reported, "The low turnout of Tuesday's showdown between Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle stood in contrast to the 82 percent turnout on April 12, 1983, when Harold Washington was elected the first black mayor of Chicago."

He defeated Jane Byrne, who was the first woman mayor of that toddlin' town.

Since then the novelty of electing the first woman or the first black candidate has worn off, a casualty of equality.

Democrats who largely benefited from the first woman and first black waves in the 1970s and 1980s have invented new categories that are turning into duds.

Not to be impolite but some of these categories are trivial to the point of annoyance. Being a lesbian is a choice, as is being a Muslim who won't assimilate. Voters should elect the best candidate, not the most "historic."

Others, such as being Hispanic, are simply the same ethnic politics that have been played since the 19th century when the Irish counted noses and elected William Russell Grace the first Irish mayor of New York.

The low turnout in Chicago likely reflects the low quality of the two candidates.

But I like to think that after Obama, Americans are realizing that feeling good on Election Day is not worth eight years of ineptitude.

Beer Summit. Really?