First Woman Prez

Jenny Greenleaf, who's blogging the convention for The The American Street has an interesting post up today reporting on the Revolutionary Women meetings of yesterday. At a panel discussion on women in the political media featuring Eleanor Clift, Renee Loth from the Boston Globe, and Helen Thomas there was a discussion of when there would be a woman president.

Clift said that women don't have the powerbase or the money right now and Renee Loth quoted Frank Luntz as saying that the first woman president would have to be a "sister-mister" --- a woman holding more traditionally male beliefs. I translate that to mean Republican and I fear that Luntz is right.

The problem for women presidential candidates in America is national security. After all, even Democratic war heroes have a hard time getting past the "soft" image on this and the Republicans work it to perfection. If there are national security issues on the table a Democratic woman would have to fight not only the normal cultural stereotypes but a vicious onslaught from the Republicans with a plethora of hints and innuendo about being "shrill, hysterical, unbalanced" etc. A Republican woman, on the other hand, would be blessedly free of such character assassination because the Democrats would never stoop that low.

Once the barrier is broken, however, I think all that falls away and a woman of either party can run on her own terms. But, sadly, considering the much greater talent available on the Democratic side, I do think our first woman president is likely to be a fairly conservative Republican.

On the other hand, if it fails to happen in the next 20 years then I think that formulation may very well be wrong. I don't sense that young people hold as many stereotypical views of gender as those of forty and over, so if it's 2022, this entire argument may very well seem completely archaic. I hope so, anyway.