PUBLIC MARKS with tags enough & 2008

At first, it sounds like a bad joke: What if a woman, a black, and a Mormon ran for president? Yet with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney running for the White House, this welcome burst of diversity in US presidential candidates is no joke. Each of these politicians comes with enough experience, patriotism, and popular support to be taken seriously for the 2008 contest. Yet polls show a number of Americans still hold some prejudice against them simply for their sex, race, or religion. Polls find that, while a strong minority of Americans say the US is "not ready" for a woman or black president, a vast majority of them say they could vote for one. A more worrisome poll finds 37 percent would not vote for a Mormon - a much higher negative response than for an evangelical Christian, a Catholic, or a Jew, although not as high as for a Muslim.