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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (4448)	9/10/1998 11:55:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

September 10, 1998 Year of the Woman Returns The publicity attending Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton made 1992 "The Year of the Woman" and helped elect six women to the U.S. Senate. Geraldine Ferraro failed to join the parade when she narrowly lost a chance to be the Democratic nominee against Al D'Amato. Now the former Vice Presidential candidate is running again, and making an overt pitch for female votes. So far, it isn't working. Polls show Ms. Ferraro trailing among likely Sept. 15 primary voters. The blas‚ reaction to the Ferraro candidacy tells us that women in politics may have progressed to the point where voters now judge them mainly on their merits. The presence of women in politics has grown steadily. The 1992 victors were followed by the elections of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and GOP Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Elizabeth Dole is a contender for the GOP Presidential nomination. But there's been a change from the hype of 1992. Women candidates today are more likely to be treated like earthbound politicians than holy figures deserving special status and deference. Ms. Ferraro has tried to avoid controversy and play off her celebrity status. The former co-host of "Crossfire," CNN's debating cauldron, has avoided any televised debates to date. When CBS reporter Marcia Kramer challenged her aversion to debates, Ms. Ferraro snapped back, "Whose campaign are you working for?" She's still averse to answering questions. Ms. Ferraro has also avoided questions about her family's complex financial affairs. After the 1984 Presidential election, the House Ethics Committee found clear violations in the disclosure forms she'd filed as a Congresswoman, but it softened the draft report's suggestion of a reprimand because she was leaving Congress. This year Ms. Ferraro grudgingly released her tax returns under restrictions: Reporters could examine them for a three-hour period in the offices of her accountant but couldn't copy them. Incumbent Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun is also struggling and most recently fell to fighting, not with her opponent, but with George Will. A recent Will column questioned why the Justice Department had twice refused IRS requests to impanel grand juries to hear evidence about her possible tax violations. "I think because he could not say 'nigger,' he said the word 'corrupt,' " Senator Moseley-Braun raged at reporters last Sunday. "George Will can just take his hood and go back to wherever he came from." Ms. Moseley-Braun later apologized and her office had to acknowledge Mr. Will hadn't used the word "corrupt." Polls had her GOP opponent ahead by 11 points before the Will incident. California's Senator Barbara Boxer, another "Year of the Woman" winner, is also in trouble. Recall that Senator Boxer was thunderously critical of former Senator Bob Packwood's smooching transgressions. She waited, however, until this Tuesday to announce on the Senate floor that President Clinton's behavior was "immoral." Senator Boxer's unquestioned liberalism may not be enough to carry her to a second term against GOP nominee Matt Fong; polls show the race tied. The electoral difficulties of these individual candidates are hardly going to stall the recent advance of women in politics. They do suggest, however, that the media-driven assumption that women in office succeed only if they are Stepford Liberals is simplistic. Elinor Burkett, a feminist writer who has written a respectful book on conservative women, says their new-found prominence since 1992 isn't a feminist nightmare but a feminist victory: "Women finally have enough power and forbearance to splinter in a thousand directions, and still succeed . . . we need not speak in one voice to be heard." What the 1998 campaign has revealed is that some of the voices of 1992 are no longer speaking to the real concerns of contemporary voters. interactive.wsj.com