sometimes what benefits you and other people is not the right, just, or proper thing to do
You know, I've had to do similar things while canvassing for Obama. And the thing is, people like that are really not thinking about valuing certain characteristics over another--that's our academic side coming through. They're just thinking about difference, and reassuring them in that way that Obama is no different than they are...well, it doesn't sound so bad to me.
However, when I was canvassing for Obama in the primaries, I definitely had people tell me to my (very definitely female) face that they were supporting Obama because he was a man. Thankfully, I did not meet many of them. But I would usually just nicely say, "I would love to have a woman president, but I disagree on this issue and that issue," and try to get the discussion back to...something other than sexism. It's hard, because I definitely don't want to sell my soul to win an election (and back 4 years ago my father offered to pay my credit card debt off if I would vote for Bush--in South Carolina, where it certainly wouldn't have mattered much, and I said no)
I've also been to Elko. And to Winnemucca, and Battle Mountain. They're not-so-lovely stopovers on the way to lovely Yellowstone NP.
My tactic on the Obama race issue is to simply declare hime to be white. Its at least as true as to declare him black and as your cnvassar points out, culturally he's white. I have found that after the initial shock wears off, people agree. They then proceed to reject him on merit (he's a muslim socialist). This I take to be progress.
Of a similar vein, down here in the south, we have to tacitly agree that no Muslim should ever hold public office, and say that Obama is a Real, True, Christian.
As an atheistic homosexual Arabist, this is beyond tedious
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