ELECTIONS '08

Check out our elections coverage page for the latest news, editorials, polls and voter information.
Enter now »
Timm Herdt's blog from Sacramento »

In grade school, I was told — usually by an authority figure who wanted me to study harder — that America is a country where any child could grow up to be president.

Even girls? I asked. Even those black children the governor of Alabama turned away at the schoolhouse door? Even them? The adult answered, "yes," even if the tone of voice failed to convey much confidence.

Well, it was a great theory. But then came Lyndon Johnson from Texas. And Richard Nixon apparently from Mars. Jimmy Carter came from out of nowhere. George Herbert Walker Bush came with a silver spoon. Ronald Reagan came from the silver screen. Bill Clinton was the comeback kid. George Bush came from both Texas and from privilege.

It came to me that there was a certain, shall we say, predictability about the gender and race of presidential contenders.

That is, with the exception of Geraldine Ferraro, who in 1984 squeezed through a crack in the glass ceiling — a mere 64 years after women had been granted the right to vote.

After the Democrat became the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket, baby boomer women figured America would honor its promise of an equal-opportunity Oval Office.

And despite the fact that Ferraro and Walter Mondale lost the general election, many believed another woman would follow shortly on Ferraro's heels — and not in the shadow position, either. It was only a matter of a very short time.

Twenty-four years passed and then came the great pantsuited hope, Hillary Clinton. Not only was she going for the top spot on the ticket; she came to the race as the front-runner.

As she bowed out on Saturday in the runner-up spot for the Democratic presidential nomination, I found myself wondering if we have, in fact, come a long way, baby.

Of course, Clinton conceded to another historic candidate: Barack Obama, destined to become the first African-American to be his party's nominee for the presidency.

But what does this say about gender in America?

"For women over 40, there is a sense Hillary was the last shot for a woman president in their lifetimes," said Haco Hoang, a policy analyst for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and an assistant professor at California Lutheran University.

While their candidacies are historic, Hoang noted, neither hopeful played on "Oh, I'm the women's candidate; oh, I'm the black candidate,'" she noted.

But for Hillary, stereotypes were as constant a companion on the campaign trail as her daughter, Chelsea.

She busted them some days, and she played into them on others.

At no time was that irony more apparent than that day in January when Hillary — in a pantsuit as blue as the podium bunting at a political convention — puddled up on the campaign trail.

Some charged the tears were calculated to soften her iron-pants image and thus make her more vote-worthy.

But it did not play well with 36-year-old Hoang.

"There is no crying in politics. How can you trust a commander in chief who cries?" she asked.

But to Adina Nack, an associate professor at California Lutheran University, it's much ado about boo-hoo.

"Not a single tear left the woman's eye. She choked up, that's all. A male politician chokes up, and it shows his sensitive side," said Nack, a 35-year-old sociologist.

Hillary showed her mental mettle by getting up and suiting up each day for a rigorous campaign. She showed that she was tough, a trait that played well with women.

In fact, polls show as the campaign progressed women liked her better. As did immigrants, who often had to work three jobs just to support their families after they arrived on our shores.

In fact, who among us is so partisan he or she can't toss a bone to a person who presents persistence in the face of resistance?

Hillary not only worked hard; she worked best when she was working smart. Through 22 debates, she mopped the floor with her opponents when the topics were foreign or domestic policies. She was the only candidate who could explain her own healthcare plan on the back of her business card.

And from sea to shining sea, she lugged the excess baggage of a public marriage. They say the sins of the family fall on the daughter. In Hillary's case, they stuck to the wronged wife.

Some Democrats have never forgiven her for staying with Bill after he famously cheated on her in the Oval Office.

A husband who is arguably the greatest natural campaigner in our country's history seemed to lose his perfect political pitch when stumping for his wife.

His highly publicized brash comments distracted from a campaign that had mild ADD from the start.

But out of the limelight, Bill Clinton played the good, little husband, visiting countless small towns on her behalf and probably deserves much credit for Hillary's strong showing in the primaries.

Hillary, it seems, was doomed to learn the lesson of the first wives' club: "If you put your husband's career first for decades, it won't necessarily reward you," Nack pointed out.

She blundered, believes Hoang, by using experiences she gained only through her husband's position as president, namely taking hostile fire in Bosnia and bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

"She tried to have her cake and eat it, too," said Hoang, who teaches political science.

As Obama advances to the general election against John McCain, I wonder if race or gender is the bigger barrier to catching life's brass rings.

Commentator Judith Warner noted in the New York Times, "clearly, in an age when the dangers and indignities of Driving While Black are well-acknowledged, and properly condemned, Striving While Female — if it goes too far and looks too real — is still held to be a crime."

But Gen X-er Hoang disagrees. She believes her students' generation is so past voting based on gender or race.

"They grew up in a post-gender, post-race age. To them this election we call historic is a Well, duh. One candidate's a woman; one's black. What's the big deal?' "

That underscores my thinking that Hillary failed to capture the nomination not because of gender but because of strategy. Her campaign simply failed to roust the vote in the caucus states.

Nack believes in 20 years — five more election cycles, tops — a woman will be the duly elected occupant of the Oval Office.

Her own 4-year-old daughter watched Hillary on television, and Nack's husband told the little girl that a woman can be president.

There were those familiar words again, only this time because of what Hillary Clinton has done, maybe the adult voice said them with more confidence.

"A woman as a candidate for president is a visceral thing for girls now," Nack said.

Hillary came so close and brought us so far.

— E-mail this Star columnist at ccason@VenturaCounty Star.com.