Conversation | 11/07/2008 5:00 am

Post-Election Postmortem: Did the Election Help or Hurt Women in Politics?

With Jane Wagner, Joan Ganz Cooney and Marlo Thomas

JOAN: I think it will dismember it; she appeals to the majority of the base. The base is 28 percent of the American electorate. And that means all the intellectuals in the Republican party who have already turned on her will not support her. I think it would be cataclysmic for that party, but I don’t think it will happen. She may try, but my bet is she would not make it. And, of course, four years is a lifetime in politics. We have no idea what … who the country would see as a potential leader by then.

JANE: I don’t think she will last. I think she’ll fade. Or she’ll go back to Alaska. Maybe if she does something stunning there. But she does have charisma. And when I first saw her, I thought she was like Jean Arthur in topsy-turvy versions of her movies, didn’t you? I mean, she seemed to have charm. And her speech, I thought, was so well delivered that I thought she was a star.

MARLO: She is a star.

JANE: She is a star. Exactly.

MARLO: And she’s funny. And she’s brave and she’s bold.

JANE: She is brave. I know.

MARLO: She’s very brave and bold and she seems fearless.

JANE: We want that from a woman.

JOAN: She’s also ignorant and maybe stupid. I mean, many people who know her don’t think she’s terribly smart. She’s quick. She’s a quick study.

JOAN: She has no depth of interest in anything.

JANE: And I think her ambition is what made us turn on her. Her ambition to take this kind of job or to take this kind of position, knowing that she’s not prepared for it, or not right for it.

MARLO: What about Dan Quayle? I mean, he wasn’t qualified or right. I wonder if anybody has the guts to say, “No, I’m not qualified.” Dan Quayle didn’t think he was.

JOAN: He had two terms in the Senate. I don’t think he saw himself as unqualified. He knew the issues a whole lot better than Sarah Palin. He had no presence.

JANE: He couldn’t spell potato and he couldn’t think on his feet

MARLO: But I don’t think he was an overly intelligent fellow. I kind of see them as the same, in terms of the grasp of the issues and ability … well, actually she’s a better speaker.

JOAN: She has a lot more presence. He was never a star. She’s a real star.

JANE: Do you think she tarnishes, enhances or has any long-standing impact on the idea of a woman as a president or vice president? I don’t think she’s helped the cause.

MARLO: I think in the wake of Hillary, Palin’s a non-issue. I just think that Hillary is such a qualified human being, whether you want her for president or not, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, but she’s a very qualified human being, and held her own on that stage with all those guys, all those men, in all those debates. Sarah Palin could never do that.

JOAN: Yeah, but I think she has moved the needle, as Hillary did. I think it will be far more common, in the future, to have a woman on the ticket if the man is a candidate; that will not be as rare as it has been. And I think both Hillary and Sarah in particular, oddly enough, because she came out of nowhere, whereas we all knew Hillary. She wasn’t exactly the woman candidate. She was “Hillary Clinton.”

Read more about: Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, News, Politics, Sarah Palin, Vote, women

272 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Sherrie: “She was the first brunette blond joke.” You get my vote for best sentence of the day….hee hee just goes to show, ya can’t judge a woman by her hair color.

By iris odonata on 11/07/2008 2:57 pm

LOL. Yes Sherrie, I agree. Hopefully the Republicans have learned that what people saw in Hilary was not just that she was a woman. She is a very qualified, smart, dedicated, and educated woman with a lot of experience. As you said Sarah is the “brunette blond joke”, she is also the “guy with the nice hair”. You know the type — They make their way up the corporate ladder because they know the right people, look good and talk convincing but don’t have substance to really do the job. They get found out eventually as she did.

By Donna Chee on 11/07/2008 5:02 pm

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I never looked at Hillary as a women alone, but I looked to her policies and experience. She was a lawyer, a first lady, and then a Senator. I find it hard to agree that Sarah Palin is “just a pretty woman”—you do not get where she has—even in AK—with just a pretty face. You may win a beauty contest that way, but not get to be governor. Let’s assume she was not qualified to be VP. But, she was on a commission that exposed her own parties corruption, she defeated an incumbent governor, and she did that with a family. But allow me to take your quote and apply it to a man, “they know the right people, look good and talk convincing but don’t have substance to really do the job.” That’s how a lot of us feel about Pres-Elect Obama and I HOPE we’re wrong.

By Susan Easterday on 11/08/2008 3:50 pm

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Sherrie, you are my quote of the week!

By Tee Zee on 11/07/2008 8:08 pm

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This is from a New York Times editorial on Set.12. “As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking. If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible. It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness. What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications. The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.” So if anything got hurt by this election it was McCain’s campaign, Palin’s reputation, hence, the Republican Party itself. Instead of hurting women I think it showed us what we need to expect from women who intend to run for political office. Hillary has set the bar high as have many others like Rice, Albright, et al. Palin might have been a “star” but a star is not good enough. And here, I must disagree with Jane Wagner who liken Palin with Jean Arthur–––there, is the sassy sex appeal but Arthur had a wit borne from wisdom and that’s a great big difference––at least in my book.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 11/07/2008 9:23 am

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Phyllis, Totally agree. Harpo Marx was a ‘star’ too and Palin is as qualified to be VP as he was. Authentic, prepared, smart, strategic, aware and hard working women with a plan and the savvy to execute it aren’t deterred. I am tired of those who don’t focus on making themselves the most they can be and go full out for their dreams instead of always having excuses of why women can’t do or be this or the other thing. Palin neither helped or hurt women. She is a cynical blip, a farce, a Wasallia Hillybilly as a McCain staffer said who has absolutely nothing to do with me—thank god. The Republicans are meeting this weekend to discuss how to fix their ‘brand.’ How about authenticity instead of pandering? How about raising the intelligence of the discourse and the standards instead of going for the lowest common denominator? How about following the Constitution and keeping religion out of state matters? How about not starting phony wars, torturing people, disobeying International law, and using the treasury as a piggy bank for Halliburton/oil companies and Nazi organizations like Blackwater? How about using Lincoln for the model instead of the blueprint that created every Dark Age?

By Wine Warrior on 11/07/2008 11:40 am

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phyllis: So if anything got hurt by this election it was McCain’s campaign, Palin’s reputation, hence, the Republican Party itself. Depends on who you listen to and what you read… A Rasmussen article this morning states: “Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability. “Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided. “Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.” I tend to go along with Rasmussen. I had no problem with Governor Palin and I think 28 million other women voters saw no problem, either. Whether she ever runs again, I don’t care. If Hillary ever runs again, I will not vote for her, and it won’t be because she’s a woman.

By Marjorie C. on 11/07/2008 12:31 pm

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“The Republican Party lost its big bet on Gov. Sarah Palin. BY C. NICOLE MASON, NOVEMBER 6, 2008 Sen. John McCain’s strategists hoped that Palin would mobilize women and tilt the election in their favor. It didn’t happen. According to the exit polls, 53 percent of women voters supported Sen. Barack Obama. The hope of capturing feminists and women who may have felt slighted by Sen. Hillary Clinton not winning the Democratic nomination did not materialize. A whopping 83 percent of people who supported Clinton’s nomination voted for Obama while McCain captured a narrow 16 percent of those voters. Unmarried and working women voted overwhelmingly Democratic as well, 58 percent and 60 percent respectively. (And Palin made no inroads among racial and ethnic minority women: 96 percent of black women and 68 percent of Latino women voted Democratic.) So what happened to the Palin factor? The truth of the matter is it never really existed. While women across the country were eager to support a woman candidate, they were more interested in supporting the right woman candidate. After the smoke cleared following the announcement of Palin’s candidacy for vice president, it became clear that gender alone was not enough to pull women from one side of the fence to the other. Palin’s positions on important issues like the war, abortion, the economy and health care were also significant factors. She was also viewed by many women as divisive and unqualified for the second highest post in the free world. This was not about internalized sexism; it was the truth. In short, she was not every woman’s woman. The narrow view of gender that the GOP tried to sell in this election cycle not only to women but also to America fell short. In the end, women voted the issues. I believe one day very soon we will see a woman elected to the office of the president, but we have to be sure she will be the right one”. C. Nicole Mason, Ph.D., is a political scientist and the executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. She is also a senior research fellow at the National Council for Research on Women. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

By Wine Warrior on 11/07/2008 12:49 pm

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this campaign for sure helped women in politics. hillary was a major contender and it wasn’t her being a woman that cost her the nomination, it was being hillary. i personally like her and supported her, but she alienated a lot of people of all political stripes and sexes and colors and faith persuasions. it was a very positive thing that women didn’t blindly vote for mccain because of palin. the reasons palin was scary and unacceptable go far beyond her being a woman and i think they’ve been discussed plenty so i won’t elaborate. what i think is very disgusting is how the mccain campaign honchos are now using palin as their whipping girl. they chose her. they groomed programmed her. it’s their fault. but i’m glad they were so misguided because now there will be hope in the white house for the first time in i years. go obama.

By babs dennis on 11/07/2008 9:45 am