Last week I posted a diary, asking: If Hillary Clinton is not the first woman president, then who will be the first woman president?
From the responses, it was clear several people expected that if Clinton failed, several woman Democrats would rise up to take her place. In this diary, I will explain why that's not necessarily true, and why Democrats can't afford to wait around if they want the first woman president to be a Democrat.
Nature of Elections
Say Hillary Clinton does not win the nomination, and Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, or Joe Biden does. Does that mean they're likely to choose a woman as their running mate? Not necessarily. While the political winds might favor a woman running mate, they might also favor another male Democratic party star. I keep mentioning Julian Castro as an example.
Even if a woman were chosen as the VP and were on the winning ticket, there is no guarantee that she would eventually succeed her male running mate as president. Just ask President Mondale, President Gore, or (ugh, shudder) President Cheney. The bottom line is that vice presidents have a pretty poor track record of getting elected president in the past 40 years.
Yet if another Democratic woman ran for top of the ticket in 2020, 2024 or beyond, she could face some stiff challenges.
If a male Democrat wins in 2016, she might have to wait until 2024 to run. And then she would face an electorate that could well have grown tired of Democrats and be thirsting for new blood (if you think the eight-year itch is strong, imagine a 16-year itch).
So any woman Democrat might have to wait until 2028 or 2032 to have a realistic shot at winning the presidency. And that's if there is a woman Democrat with impressive political skills willing to run, and if Democrats haven't coalesced around another rising star who is male.
Think about that: 2032 is 17 years away. A lot can happen in 17 years. Look at all of the positions that were in vogue in the 1990s that have since fallen out of favor. We could be entering a new conservative era in 17 years, where the Democratic Party is weak and struggling to win on a national level again.
In the meantime, if a woman Democrat does not run for/win the presidency until then, it is highly possible a Republican could take her place.
Republicans Choose One of Their Own
Even with the praise being heaped on her after the second debate, the chance that Carly Fiorina will be nominated, much less elected president, is very slim. Nonetheless, she demonstrates the willingness of Republican women to run for the top of the ticket, even when they're highly likely to fail (see Bachmann, Michelle).
It disturbs me that more women have run for president on the Republican side than on our side. More concerning is that within the next election cycle or so, a woman who is not a fringe candidate might run for the top of the Republican ticket, like Susana Martinez or Nikki Haley. Say what you will, but both are governors who come from diverse backgrounds and have (seemingly) not done anything obviously crazy. Haley received media praise not long ago for her willingness to remove the Confederate flag from the State Capitol and its grounds.
In an atmosphere where people have had 12 to 16 years of Democrats, they might be willing to embrace a Republican who does not appear to be overtly ideological, and that could very well be a Republican woman.
And yet Haley has a record of being staunchly anti-abortion. She voted for bills that required an ultra sound prior to getting an abortion and for a 24-hour waiting period. Susana Martinez is also anti abortion and opposed to gay marriage.
Are We Willing to Concede the War On Women?
Both women's positions put them squarely in the center of a Republican Party willing to shut down the government to prevent Planned Parenthood from being funded. Yet by waiting for a woman candidate superior to Hillary Clinton, we risk giving Republicans a victory that they can use to insulate themselves from criticism.
"Oh, you Democrats think our policies on issues affecting women are inhumane? Well, the first woman President of the United States is a Republican! Clearly one party isn't afraid of women, and it's not yours."
Imagine this said in varying ways over the next four to eight years, as Republicans double down on their draconian efforts to marginalize women through anti-abortion legislation, anti-family planning legislation, workplace legislation, and more.
While it might not neutralize all attacks against Republicans, it would certainly remove some of their sting, as many would wonder why a Democratic Party that claimed to represent the best interests of women couldn't stand up and support their strongest woman candidate for the highest office when it counted.
The Strengths and Drawbacks of the Other Possible Candidates
And even if we're fortunate to avoid a Republican as the first woman president, we would still need to consider that other potential Democratic woman candidates contain their own flaws. I will look at some of the names that come up most frequently. Note that at this time, not one has openly declared her interest in running for president.
Elizabeth Warren is the biggest name, and if she jumped into the 2016 race, she would be very competitive. But she hasn't jumped in. She does not want to run for president in 2016. And if she does not want to run during the best possible time for her, then she will likely not want to run four to eight years (at least) from now. But if she did, she might face scrutiny for the fact that she was a Republican in the mid-1990s. She would likely also face criticism from Republicans in the general election for allegedly using her Native American ancestry as a means of affirmative action (not true). While that may not seem significant, it is a preview of what she could expect in the unlikely event she chose to run in the future.
Kristen Gillibrand, who took over Hillary Clinton's Senate seat in 2009, is also considered a strong future contender. However, her affiliations and votes might make some here pause. Gillibrand was considered a Blue Dog Democrat when she took over Clinton's seat, and maintains a "moderate" cred. She is close friends with Debbie Wasserman Schultz. And while Gillibrand was not in Congress in 2002 to vote on the Iraq War, she was one of five Democrats to vote against the Democratic leadership's bill to require a withdrawal date with funding for the Iraq War. She was also the only New York Democrat to vote with Republicans on Iraq War funding in 2008.
Amy Klobuchar seems pretty squarely liberal and could be a contender in time, though it has been acknowledged that she is "[n]ot in Clinton's ballpark in terms of resume, name ID or fundraising ability at this point in her career." There's nothing about her that strikes me as overly weak, but also not overly remarkable. She just seems good and solid. Which is nice, but there are a lot of good, solid candidates that never break out of the pack.
Kamala Harris, another rising star, has a good chance of taking over Barbara Boxer's Senate seat. From there, she could eventually be a presidential candidate. However, if she did, she might face scrutiny for her time as San Francisco's District Attorney and as an Attorney General. If immigration is an issue (and when is it not an issue?), she might face general election criticism for her support of San Francisco's sanctuary city policies.
This is not to say that any of the above women would not make good candidates. They would all make good candidates. But we are fooling ourselves if we think they will possess some rare mixture of star power and uncontroversial resume that would vault them over any other candidate, let alone show them to be clearly superior to Hillary Clinton.
And that's if they choose to run. How Hillary Clinton fares in 2016 could affect their willingness to undergo a similar grilling. Because many of these women, if not all, admire her greatly, and have called her "the strongest candidate the Democrats could field."
If Clinton experiences significantly worse treatment than her male counterparts and ends up losing because of it, that might make other Democratic women hesitate. If the "strongest candidate the Democrats could field" got destroyed, what hope would they have?
Letting Perfect Be the Enemy of the Pretty Damn Good
What this boils down to is that a lot of people who support woman-friendly policies, but don't support Hillary Clinton, act as though they have the luxury of waiting until the "right" woman candidate comes along. For the reasons stated above, that is not true. There is not and will never be a female or male candidate who is flawless and all things to all people. Obama came closest, but even now, many people revile him for being a "corporate sellout."
If Hillary Clinton does not become the 2016 nominee and win the presidency, there "might" be another Democratic woman who can do it at some undetermined point in the future. Who knows when that will be. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is running right now and can be president in 2016. We can pretend that it won't have any affect on the Republicans' war on women, or on gender inequality in general, but that's not true. A woman president who is a strong advocate for women's rights could be hugely influential both in terms of specific policies she advocates for/implements and in a broader cultural sense.
Some people claim that women's issues are trivial compared to the broader-based economic issues that affect society. Yet we know that issues that affect women do not only affect women -- they affect everyone. From family planning to wages, when women are disadvantaged, it hurts society.
By nominating and electing Hillary Clinton 2016, Democrats have an opportunity to deal a blow to Republicans in the war on women. If we don't, we risk letting Republicans set the tone on women's issues in the near future.