Ceiling shattered
At long last, a woman will be a major political party’s nominee for U.S. president
Way back in 1940, Gracie Allen — a hilariously addled comedienne who starred in a popular radio sitcom with her husband, George Burns — announced she was running for president as the candidate of the “Surprise Party.”
Her mother was a Democrat, she explained, her father was a Republican and she had been born a Surprise. When someone asked her about her party affiliation, she answered, “I may take a drink now and then, but I never get affiliated.”
Her campaign became wildly popular, but of course it was just a running gag. The idea of a woman winning the presidency was literally a joke.
That’s right, a joke. Just think about that when you read the front page of this morning’s paper.
History has just happened in America. And no matter what your political inclination, it’s something to contemplate and celebrate.
One of our nation’s highest glass ceilings has been shattered. At long last, it is abundantly evident that a woman will be a major political party’s nominee for president of the United States.
Love her or hate her — and heaven knows, plenty of people have strong opinions about her — Hillary Clinton has accomplished something extraordinary. Forget for a moment about whether she’s a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative; if Carly Fiorina had won her party’s nomination, the victory would’ve been just as significant. What matters is that there’s now a very real possibility our nation’s next president will be a woman.
Amid the screeching partisan cacophony that’s become the unfortunate norm in modern politics, let’s pause to quietly consider the significance of this watershed event.
Great Britain has had its Margaret Thatcher, Israel its Golda Meir, India its Indira Gandhi. But no woman has ever before come close to winning the presidency of the United States.
Geraldine Ferraro cracked the glass when Democrats nominated her for the vice presidency in 1984 and Sarah Palin carried the vice presidential banner for Republicans in 2008. But they were essentially appointed by their party’s presidential nominees, plucked from obscurity without having to fight their way through the grueling primary process.
Sure, third parties have nominated women for the presidency — most recently, the Green Party in 2012 — but they’ve never had a prayer of winning. And a few women — like Democrat Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Republican Margaret Chase Smith in 1964 — have run credible if losing campaigns for their party’s nominations. But Clinton will be the first to run at the top of a major party’s ticket.
This milestone in American history will have an impact that’s impossible to fully predict. Beyond how it might fundamentally change the way Americans look at women in executive positions, this presidential campaign will almost certainly inspire a generation of girls watching a powerful woman run for the highest office in the land.
Consider this history lesson. The year 1992, when Clinton rose to national prominence as her husband first ran for president, was a fortuitous time for women in American politics. The bitterly fought confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had just shined a glaring spotlight on the dominance of men in the Senate. When four women won election to the Senate that November it was such a remarkable event the press dubbed it “The Year of the Woman,” a cringe-worthy nickname that sounded like a passing fad.
Today, a total of 104 women serve in Congress, 20 of them in the Senate. That’s a little under 20 percent of the 535 seats in Congress, nowhere near the female proportion of the country’s population, but a nonetheless dramatic improvement. Let’s hope a woman running for president will inspire more women in both parties not only to vote but also to run for office.
Whatever your political affiliation, take a minute today to contemplate this moment in American history. A woman running for and possibly winning the presidency of the United States — an idea once ridiculed as fodder for punchlines — is now a reality.