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July/August 2000

Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling By Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis Scribner Click on the title to buy the book

As we enter the 21st century, facts do not augur well for any woman who aims to become president of the United States. There are only nine women in the Senate and only three female governors--major ticket-punching political "farm clubs" that provide the credentials and name recognition to run for the presidency.

Money is hard to come by for women, despite the success of Emily's List--a fund-raising organization that has supported women candidates including former Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Sen. Barbara Mikulski. Given the obscene millions needed for presidential campaigns, as one male operative says, "Emily's List is chump change." Put that together with a major gender-bender--a reluctance on the part of both women and men to support a woman for high office--and it is one rough slog.

In theory it should be easier. One Democratic poll showed that 90 percent of respondents would vote for a woman candidate for president. (Interestingly, women without college educations are the most supportive, but the authors of Madam President unfortunately neglect to explain why.)

But it turns out that people tend to tell pollsters one thing and then act differently when confronted by flesh-and-blood candidates. In practice, the woman candidate faces an impossibly high standard. She is expected to be a female version of God--if God isn't, in fact, a woman.

So what's a woman to do? Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis look at the past, present, and future of women in politics in their examination of the quest for Madam President. The disheartening conclusion is that the first female candidate will have to be safe, mainstream, and conventional. No boat rockers, the likes of John McCain, need apply.

These two journalists--a husband and wife team--are inside-the-beltway veterans (Clift: "The McLaughlin Group" panelist and contributing editor for Newsweek, Brazaitis: Washington editor and columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer). The book reflects their bent. They drive the middle of the road with conventional wisdom as their HOV passenger. For example, they write that presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole was spurned by the Republican establishment in favor of "another moderate, [George W.] Bush." There are a lot of adjectives that fit Bush--anti-choice, pro-big business, pro-death penalty, pro-polluters, pro-guns--but moderate isn't one of them.

That said, the book is a valuable compendium of facts and solid reporting for those interested in this subject. It's best when the women politicians speak for themselves. The litany of sexist assaults they've had to endure is a drum beat far more effective than moralizing.

Opponents have used every gender attack against them--from whisper campaigns that they are lesbians if single, to ads that characterize them as neglectful mothers and wives if they are married. The authors point out that reporters emphasized that Liddy Dole was childless, but that they never mentioned Pat Buchanan's childlessness, although both were excessive proponents of family values.

The authors note that Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who openly wants to run for the presidency, "could be the model for the Senator Barbie doll." Her "ultra feminine qualities have served her well in a state where good ol' boys hold sway." Yet Hutchison stood up to the boys' club with humor when she pushed for state insurance coverage for mammograms. When Hutchison discovered that penile implants to treat sexual impotence were among the covered procedures, she threatened to expose the double standard. The male legislators quickly added the mammogram benefit.

Like other female Republican office holders, she has been better on women's issues than her male counterparts, but Hutchison does not relish feminist battles. For example, she persuaded a female colleague not to file a complaint against Strom Thurmond, the ancient senator who groped and grabbed her whenever she passed his desk.

California Sen. Diane Feinstein tops the Clift-Brazaitis list as the female politician with the best combination of experience, temperament--coupled with her home state's huge electoral prize--to become a vice-presidential pick or to run for the presidency. She was tough enough to face down the NRA and push through a ban on military type semiautomatic assault guns as a freshman senator in 1994. But she had to endure mean personal attacks to get there. In the 1990 primary, opponents compared Feinstein to Leona Helmsley, write the authors, "equating convicted tax cheat Helmsley's crimes with campaign-reporting allegations." Feinstein also felt a "very subtle anti-Semitism" was at play in the ad that linked her with haughty Helmsley.

When New Jersey Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman appointed her state's first woman attorney general and the first female African-American secretary of state, men grumped that the statehouse was becoming an "estrogen palace."

Whitman has earned enemies in the GOP by being a liberal on social issues and pro-choice (with some flip-flopping on issues like partial-term abortions). She says women govern differently because of their different life experiences. "If you give a woman a choice between capital construction for a bridge or for a halfway house for troubled teenagers, we'll go for the halfway house first. That's not because we don't understand the importance of infrastructure repair, but we tend to focus on the human side first." Yet Whitman does not always follow such pronouncements. As Clift and Brazaitis write: "Her orders to privatize state functions displaced workers and caused economic disruption to those least able to rebound."

The trouble with gender generalizations is that female politicians are not monolithic, any more than the women who may or may not vote for them. Just being a woman is not enough; female voters seldom vote for women whose stands do not fit theirs. There are certain commonalities, women's issues, and concerns that bond female politicians on both sides of the aisle, although pro-choice considerations can be a sticking point for some Republican and Catholic women. Yet others stand up to their party and church and are pro-choice.

Generational differences are often at play, with younger women being more assertive. Maryland's Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend insisted on a guarantee that she would not be a ceremonial token before taking the post. "Townsend was granted extraordinary authority," write the authors. Three cabinet secretaries reported directly to her and she oversaw spending for public safety.

The obvious heart of the problem for this book is the lack of women to write about, historically and currently, which makes for thin reading. For example, only 18 women had served in the Senate for 200 years before Barbara Mikulski's breakthrough win in 1986--and only three of those 18 were elected in their own right. The rest got there by virtue of widow's weeds, filling their dead husbands' terms until male replacements could be found. A dumb male took precedence over a bright woman.

As a result, the authors serve up pages on networking efforts to elect women and profile nationally unknown state office holders; it seems like ho-hum padding. They also devote 41 pages to Geraldine Ferraro's 1984 historic first as a major vice-presidential candidate when half that number would do. After all, the bottom line is pretty straightforward: When the ticket failed, Ferraro was blamed, not Mondale. The race spawned an unfortunate legacy--the "Ferraro Hangover"--which has since become a rationale for keeping women off the ticket.

The authors observe that one implicit rule for women candidates is that they can be attractive but not sexy, because being sexy is threatening to voters. They take a critical look at the media's proclivity for describing and defining female candidates by their looks and their clothes. Unfortunately, Clift and Brazaitis then do exactly the same thing by describing their subjects in language that could be used to describe a maturing Cosmo girl: "bright eyed and youthful at 58 ... ,"

" ... her honeyed hair teased into a Texas-sized frame around her fine features ... ," "her bouncy shoulder-length hair and dimples ... ," "she wore a slate blue dress and matching shoes ... ," "a no-nonsense redhead ..." What is the opposite of a no-nonsense redhead? A nonsense blonde? (As if these phrases weren't cloying enough, the authors indulge in cutesy chapter titles such as "Pastel Power.")

The book also fails to sort out the schizophrenia that takes over when the attributes of a successful female candidate are discussed. She is supposed to be tough, "while not surrendering her inborn empathy" as the authors put it. She is supposed to be a warm and fuzzy comfort but reckless enough to fight silly little wars, à la Margaret Thatcher. The authors write, in fact, that voters want an American version of Thatcher. What is disturbing is that they do not challenge that view. Given that Thatcher herself aped a male idol, Ronald Reagan, and that her draconian measures sent the working class to the poor house, her "toughness" is hardly a laudable act to follow. As Gloria Steinem says, beware of a politician who "looks like us, and acts like them."

The biggest disappointment in this book, however, is the cop-out last chapter titled, "A How-to for Women." Michael Shaheen, a "media training guru" who coaches Clinton and Gore, was "happy to share his advice for a would-be Madam President." His seminar is titled: "Husbands, Hemlines and Hairdos." To borrow from Dorothy Parker, this reader frow'd up.

His advice is simplistically insulting to any woman with the ambition, courage, and smarts to climb that far: "Highlight executive experience, do your homework [he is high on studying Margaret Thatcher], project a warm friendly image, put women in charge in your campaign, highlight your handling of a crisis, inspire true believers, come from the right state [big, with many electoral votes], exude high wattage [formerly known as charisma], listen to focus groups." In other words, be like the men and trim your ideas accordingly to do whatever it takes to win.

And, of course, Shaheen lists "family matters." The gist of this category is that it helps to have one.

Ann Richards makes a keen observation when she says, "I don't understand why we continue to trivialize ourselves--no matter how smart, you have to keep up the wife and mother image--that you're keeping the house clean, and giving parties when women have no more time to do all that than men do who fill those jobs. Continuing to talk about how women do it and raise a family just continues to make those questions seem important and they're not."

Don't count on the media for help in that department. Remember the flap about Hillary (perhaps the first crossover political wife to try for the presidency if she wins her Senate race) not being a cookie baker, which was fueled by the media? Although the kitchen is no doubt a foreign country to Liddy Dole, she dutifully brought her mother's pecan cookie recipe to the Rosie O'Donnell show even though their topic was gun control.

Perhaps the best advice is to ignore all the "shoulds" and stand for something.

Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972 and never got more than 7 percent of the vote in the 12 primaries in which she ran. But Chisholm, who said she met far more discrimination as a woman than as a black, was a passionate and articulate voice for her causes, federal spending for social programs, and cuts in defense spending. Her stands on civil rights and human rights inspired many.

"When you make a bid for such a high office," she said, "you have to be very outspoken and assertive and not be afraid to offend people."

Her legacy of guts and honesty should be remembered. They are far more worthy goals than winning hollow victories.