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A Woman Could Be President
Hillary Clinton, Rice Lead Poll
Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist
POSTED: 5:59 pm EST February 25, 2005
I have always thought every little girl could grow up to be president.
But, like most women, I grew up only hearing that this exalted political goal was reserved for little boys.
Nowadays, the idea of a woman president is not at all far-fetched -- it could happen if a woman runs in 2008. And some women are getting ready to make that race.
It's about time.
American women have been sold short for too long and have had to struggle for basic American rights they should have had at birth. Why? Well, one reason is that this is a nation of immigrants, and for all of America's progress in so many fields, many cultures brought with them a primitive view of the woman's "place." The Founding Fathers had great vision, but not enough.
The battle for equality had its greatest impetus in the woman's suffrage movement that won women the right to vote in 1920. The struggle gained new momentum years later when feminists fought in vain for an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But that feminist surge made many strides toward equality anyway. Through affirmative action and their own grand awakening, women moved into the elite professions, including business, broadcasting, law and medicine.
They sit in corporate boardrooms, serve as presidents of Ivy League colleges and are growing in numbers as lawmakers in the state houses, as governors and in Congress. They have made huge leaps in the last half of the 20th century.
But there are more mountains to climb, and it seems the acceptance of a woman president is the next natural step. It's an idea whose time has come.
Proof of that is the recent nationwide Hearst Newspapers/Siena College poll showing that a majority of Americans say the country is ready to elect a woman as president in 2008.
Better than that, a majority said they would vote for a woman for president.
The telephone poll was done Feb. 10-16 and surveyed 1,125 registered voters in 50 states and the District of Columbia. As portrayed by the poll, the first female presidential candidate would be a Democrat. Naturally, she is depicted as stronger on health care and education, but somewhat weaker as commander in chief.
The poll listed four prominent women -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R.-N.C., and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- and asked whether any of them should run for president.
The poll's respondents made Clinton the clear frontrunner -- 53 percent of those polled, including half of the men and 26 percent of the Republicans, said she should run. Clinton may not have needed that encouragement. It's already clear that she's running.
Following Clinton in the poll was Rice, with 42 percent of the respondents saying she should run in 2008, including 30 percent of Democrats. She has gained new prominence as the nation's leading diplomat. Although only 49 percent of Republicans said the United States was ready for a female president, 58 percent said they would vote for Rice.
Boxer -- who won the spotlight temporarily during Rice's Senate confirmation hearings when she sharply questioned the nominee's credibility in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- had 13 percent of the voters saying she should run, but nearly 40 percent said they did not know who she is.
Dole had the backing of one-third of the respondents who would like to see her run in 2008, but almost half said she shouldn't.
Several other women have been mentioned as possible candidates, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
It is going to be an interesting four years as the country gets used to the idea that we may have a woman president sometime soon.
Siena College, in Albany, N.Y., is staging a two-day conference to consider the pros and cons of a woman president March 4 and 5 with the leading experts on the subject.
I've covered nine presidents, all men, and I always believed that a woman could do their job even better. It's not a question of muscle. The highest office in the land is best served by people of good intellect, integrity, credibility and big hearts.
That kind of job description surely qualifies women.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
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