No Experience Necessary

Kate Zernicke surveys political insiders on the traits that a woman must have to be elected President. Besides the obvious candidate, other names are mentioned and for the most part discarded. However, the boldest assertion in the Sunday Times article is the following:

“No woman with Obama’s résumé could run,” said Dee Dee Myers, the first woman to be White House press secretary, under Bill Clinton, and the author of “Why Women Should Rule the World.” “No woman could have gotten out of the gate.”

Women are still held to a double-standard, and they tend to buy into it themselves.

They do not have what Debbie Walsh, the director of the Rutgers center, says she used to call the John Edwards phenomenon and now calls the Barack Obama phenomenon: having never held elective office, they run for Senate, then before finishing a first term decide they should be president.

The four L's on how to get to the top of the heap in the Democratic party: liberal, loquacity, looks, lawyer. No experience necessary. [Afterthought - May 21: forgot to add fifth L, LOTSA LOOT!] © 2008 Stephen Yuen