GENDER AND 2020 REVISITED: THREE MEN, ONE WOMAN REMAINING

One of a group of three men and one woman will likely win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Former Vice  

President Joe Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren maintain the leads they’ve held for months in national and state polls. South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg surged recently in Iowa, so we’re including him. We know late runs happen, like John Kerry’s in 2004 when he came from far behind, won Iowa and rolled to the nomination.  Something

unexpected could occur, but a betting person would pick Biden, Sanders, Warren, or Buttigieg.

Note that only one woman, Warren, retains much of a chance at getting nominated, despite the fact six women entered the race. We pointed out their presence in a February 2019 post on the possibility the United States in 2020 might finally elect a woman president or vice president.  The vice presidency remains in play, but Warren now seems the only realistic possibility for a female president. So, what’s happened with the other women candidates? 

The Hillary Effect

We recognize perhaps Americans “aren’t ready” for a woman president, a quaint notion in 2019, but worth discussing until the country

elects a woman. In February, we cited generic polling suggesting five percent of the electorate won’t ever vote for a woman. We questioned that, noting pollsters asked the question in the abstract, eliminating nuances and quirks of individual candidates and races. 

No one can say if that five percent, or whatever number of never-a-woman voters live out there, doomed 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Because of Clinton’s loss, some Democrats believe the party shouldn't nominate a woman in 2020. Clinton exhibited definite weakness with male voters, losing 52-41 (62-32 among white men). She won the overall women’s vote, 52-41, because black and Hispanic women gave her 98% and 67% of their votes respectively. White women supported Donald Trump, 47-45, despite his bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.

Hillary Clinton carried lots of baggage, from anger over Wall Street speeches to suspicions about her role in the Clinton Foundation to the e-mail saga. How much each of those things, and the actions of former FBI Director James Comey, played in the outcome no one can say. Clinton won the popular vote, 48-46, but gender could have cost her the election. 

A Story with Every Candidate

A football coach we know often says there’s a story with every recruit he gets close on but doesn’t sign. So, is there a story, beyond gender, with every female 2020 candidate who won’t get nominated? Take New York Senator Kirstin Gillibrand, who began with a  big war chest and bright prospects, but went nowhere. Was it gender?  Or, did resentment in Democratic circles over her aggressive role in forcing Minnesota’s Al Franken out of the U.S. Senate on sexual harassment charges

torpedo her campaign?  Or was it her high-pitched voice that sometimes made her sound like former Vermont Governor Howard Dean in his 2004 scream?

California Senator Kamala Harris remains in the race but has faded since a summer high generated by her calculated first debate attack on Biden. As we’ve wondered, has her sometimes snarky verbal style worn thing? Does her history as a prosecutor who put many black people in jail keep her from catching on with black voters?

Spiritualist author Mary Ann Williamson got laughs and had a few good applause lines in the early debates, but never was a serious candidate. Obscure Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard always was a long shot and her campaign now seems on its last leg.  Are there people on the mainland who don’t fully grasp Hawaii’s status as a state?  

 

We find harder explaining what’s happened with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. She too remains in the race and has qualified for the December debate. Her last debate performance generated an infusion of cash 

and excellent press. Still, she lags in the polls and hasn’t broken through in Iowa, the state next door to her Minnesota home base and a place where her reach-out-to-the-other side history should play well among centrist Democrats.

 

We wonder if Klobuchar ever really recovered from early stories alleging she mistreated her staff. That returns us to whether women receive different scrutiny in politics than men. Would a male candidate accused of bad behavior toward his staff get roasted the way Klobuchar did? Might instead he get credit for toughness and efficiency?

It’s possible the reaction to Klobuchar’s alleged bad acts demonstrates a fundamental

truth about American politics. At the highest levels, women don’t do as well in seeking executive offices as they do in running for legislative seats. While 25 women serve in the U.S. Senate, only nine currently hold governorships. Maybe Americans now accept women as legislators since, in Congress, a woman doesn’t run anything except her own office (with apologies to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi). When women “crack the whip” as executives, perhaps people recoil.

                                            

What About Warren?

The difficulty 2020 women candidates have had naturally makes us ask why Warren has done so well. Her detailed policy proposals and a disciplined campaign

that has never gotten distracted from its message offer possible explanations. Her age-defying energy on the stump hasn’t hurt. Maybe it’s no more than what one CNN commentator observed after the second debate – as a campaigner, she’s just the best athlete on the field, regardless of gender. In spite of all that works

against female candidates in 2020, her unique qualities might mean the country finally break the glass ceiling and puts a person with two X chromosomes in the oval office.