Keywords or
Terms: Hillary
Rodham Clinton; Elizabeth Warren; Executive Suites; Females; Women Suffrage; US
Senate; US House of Representatives; African-American Women; Asian American
Women; Voting Power; Female Apathy; Madeleine Albright;
Condoleezza Rice; Middle east;
Foggy-Bottom; Nicolas Sarkozy; and 2016 Presidential Election
The urge to project a female
President inspires females across the globe. So it is with the possibility of
ascendancy of Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, or any other female that may
be interested in becoming the President of this great nation. Females are not
in short supply in the population; however, there is dearth of them in fortune
500 business executive suites; and, none of them has ever occupied White House
oval office. Female governors have been admired; female National Security Advisors,
Attorney Generals, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and a host other
executive positions in government have been cherished; however, going for the golden
crown or the highest office in the land, has always been the goal, if I am to affirm
or model the women’s right convention in Seneca Fall, New York in 1848. Women's conception of their own power and efforts to nominate and vote into office
one of theirs must not be dispelled in 2016.
The notion that Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or any other female will become the next President of the United
States is a progressive one; ahead of the initial attempts of 1984 Democrat Geraldine
Ferraro and 2008 Republican Sarah Palin run for the Office of the Vice
President. Not since the ninetieth amendment to the constitution in 1920, affording
women right to vote, has there been a more promising opportunity to actually
have a woman run and win election into the White House oval office. There has
been a lot of first break through at state and local government levels; but none
as progressive and promising as having a female with the type of clout and admiration
in Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren to win the crown. In Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren,
women, especially the baby boomer generation, will have the choice to exercise their vote
to elect one of theirs to win the big prize, coveted by men for over two
centuries.
In many respect, women are
tailor-made for the challenges of leading a nation, because of their past
successes in various spheres of life, beginning with the first unit of human endeavor
or organization, the family. Because of their multi-tasking abilities and refined bullheadedness in time of crisis, women are not short of energy and wherewithal
to handle the stress and pressures of leadership. To
scorn or prevent women to install their ninth-time most admired person in the
oval office will be synonymous with attempting to favor an unbroken chain of
male Presidency since the inception of the nation in 1776.
Yet, a closer look at the
possibility – and at history – might suggest that women can end up being their own
greatest enemy. Some women, huge religious conservatives, still believe that a
woman’s place is at home. A couple will go as far as insinuating that their
religion or God ordains or proclaims it likewise; and any ambition on the part
of a woman, no matter how promising or expansionary, is fruitless and must be
ignored or halted. This is sadly true if one considers prior voting patterns
of the female population on the quest of females for national executive offices.
Factoring out dearth of female candidacies
for national executive offices, women have consistently failed to exercise
their power at the ballot box to enthrone their own in comparison to their
ratio of the population.
First, within the national executive
structure, US Senate and US House of Representatives, the nation is dying to
have more female participants. In 2014,
the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University documented One
hundred females in US Congress; twenty of them in Senate and eighty, House of
Representatives. Carol Mosely Braun (D-IL) (1993-1999) has been the only female
African -American ever elected to serve in US Senate and Mazi Hirono (D-HI)
(2012 to date), the only female Asian-American to be elected to serve in the
same capacity. A minuscule forty-nine women of color have ever served in the US
House of Representatives. This is partly because of several factors; however, a
few progressives associate this low occupancy as a result of apprehension on the
part of some female to seek the offices and partly because of the structure of
the political parties and or, failure of female activism in recent memory and
persistent female voter’s choice not to exercise their dominance relative to
the voting population.
Second, within the bound of American Political System, females continue to see politics as much of a
male sport. None can claim to know-it-all in politics; however, there must be conscious efforts to encourage women to seek higher national offices; and probably an incubator of some sort for women activists, seeking and working tirelessly to put women in higher national elected offices; including the three executive branches of government. The notion that political campaign hostilities is hardly
appealing to females is somewhat of a cop-out. Given that political campaign
hostilities, including mudslinging, could be brutal and have the potential of choking a new aspirant in
a whirlwind of competition, there are still enough room for everyone to rise up
to the soap box. Ignominious male utterances, where females are referred to as
ribs from the chest of men, can be made impossible, if women let their voices
be heard by actively participating as candidates and voters. Without continuous apprehension or apathy from some women towards seeking higher national political office(s), hardly will many men occupy the current slate of offices at the national level, because they can hardly amass the critical mass of votes to win elected offices with many women in a race.
Third, with male dominance
in national political elections set to wither away with more female candidates, there are endless synergism in women power to enthrone more females in higher national or federal offices; and,
with the brilliance of Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren candidatures in 2016, who may doubt or deny the possibilities of women enthroning one of theirs into the
oval office. The problem in the past has often been the wave of uncertainties encumbering women voting
power that dissipate consensus towards a female candidature. Women tend to vote for male candidates for national offices,
partly out of choice or tradition; sometimes, their support are directed in multiple directions, thus denying critical mass needed to put one of theirs ahead. How about concentrating your votes into one huge basket
and letting one of yours carry the day?
The beginning of wisdom in modern-day politics is
to recognize that women political power has meaning; and it is about time female
voters become less gullible to responding to party loyalty just because of hitherto
male dominant voices in national politics. A close to in-depth understanding of
how males play the game will suffice, once you have a charismatic and admirable
leader. One rarely meets elite educated lawyers with national level political
experience as voters have in Hillary Clinton and or Elizabeth Warren in 2016.
Self-hatred, self-disenfranchisement or parochialism must not triumph over commonsense,
if women are going to have one of their own in the White House oval office.
Most aspirants for the oval office are speaking to multiple constituents –
across states, regions and within their groups. It is not difficult to become
adept to tradition, or what are the historical pattern and experience; however, it takes
determinations, guts and believing in yourself to make dreams come true. Remember
what Bobby Kennedy said: There are those who look at things the
way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
In Hillary Clinton’s
candidacy, you see the fulfillment of a dream of generations of women. You see
a candidate, who has been through the trenches in 2008, a woman who has once
experienced the use of character assassinations in national elections by the opposing political party,
a woman who once chastised the presidential incumbent of a spouse that what he
hardly understands is that, you have to pound the opposition party’s attack
machine and run against the press; a candidate who appreciates that a presidential
campaign is a mirror reflection of a candidate’s aspirations and dreams; A politician that believes that a political campaign
team that goes through a tough battle together must continually bond together, because their
survival depends on staying together in the face of crisis; A candidate who thrives in somewhat chaotic presidential campaign and still maintain the intimacy of a one-on-one
communication with her brilliant team members; A grandmother who knows how to harness the energies of past warriors of
political street fights and never bets against the potential of an adversary to overcome initial failures or defeats at the state primary levels. This is a woman who understands that balancing the
budget must never be done at the back of the vulnerable groups, children and
the elderly; who knew firsthand what a backlash a former house speaker suffered
when he attempted to cut the school lunch program to balance the 1995 budget;
this is a lion of a woman who has roamed the den and ally when food and resources were scanty and
survived the austerity not by clubbing down the down trodden, but by helping up
humanity in dire times. To paraphrase Attorney- General Bobby Kennedy once again, fewer women will have the greatness to
bend history itself; but each woman, working together to change a small portion
of events; will spring forward the progress clock for women suffrage in a rather
handsome and beautiful way in our national politics.
In deciding who to
vote for, in deciding the course of 2016 election, all women need to look at
the mirror and contemplate what is going on in America today, issues of
immigration, wage stagnation, income inequality, possibility of a universal
health coverage, same-sex marriage and fighting terrorism, and ask which
candidate is best to gather together policy wonks and strategists to turn
around the nation's fortunes for better, while recognizing the pains of the vulnerable, women,
children and the elderly. Is it the Republicans or the Democrats?
What Hillary
Clinton offers is experience working alongside brilliant men and women from all walks of life, race, gender ethnicity and national origins, to bring
about change we can all relate to. Yes, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice
broke the glass ceiling at US State Department, but Hillary Clinton made the
foggy-bottom clearer with her speech to students in the Middle East during the
dawn of Arab Spring. Would you rather vote for a politician respected by other
world leaders with one, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, admonishing her
as tough, smart and a good person, or vote for a brash New Jerseyan or the
engineer of a settlement of national split vote that ushered in, his brother, a President that brought the nation to her financial knees and an unpaid-for-war in
Iraq? The choice is yours. However, you may want to positively consider the
girl, once in the state department, boys were mystically scared was driving the
national debate on foreign policy!
No comments:
Post a Comment