Hillary Clinton? Barak Obama? Bill Richardson? Time Will Tell

Its very telling that while President Bill Clinton was self-immolating on national television, telling a barefaced lie about something that was not our business to begin with, a pollster reported that his wife Hillary Clinton's ratings in the polls were very high. Yet when she had put her considerable intellect into creating a health plan for America, she was vilified as thoroughly as if she had committed a sex act in public. What is it about the American electorate that it accepts women into the public area only so long as they keep their places? Only in hindsight does it honor an independent, outspoken former first lady as it did with Betty Ford, the late President Gerald Ford's widow.

So long as First Ladies serve homemade cookies (baked by the White House chef, of course), espouse a non-political cause and stand silently in their husband’s shadow, they are celebrated. Look at any poll about the most admired women in our society and the First Lady is usually in the top five. What outstanding feat did they accomplish to arrive at this exalted standing? They married politicians. While staying married to one of those fellows may be a feat in itself, it certainly does not merit such admiration.

American women have made great strides in the public sphere. The majority of students in colleges and law schools are women. The women in medical schools have reached parity with their male counterparts. The sound of glass ceilings being shattered can be heard all around us but there are significant ways in which women continue to tread water; among those arenas are the highest levels of government and commerce.

Those who reach the ultimate heights of power, the presidency, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, represent the most dominant members of our society. We, who are not male, not rich, not white, long for those like us to grace those hallowed halls but because of the way the society is structured, the likelihood of a black president, a Latino president or a woman president is very small.

Consider some of the non-traditional candidates in past presidential elections. The first black woman to run for the presidency was the incomparable Shirley Chisholm, the first African American women to be elected to Congress. In 1972, she ran for the Democratic Party nomination, garnering 152 votes but losing the nomination to Senator George McGovern in spite of her extraordinary, and rhetorical skills. 1972 was a very contentious year: it was during a war, in the wake of the Kennedy-King assassinations, the riots that followed the King assassination, and the tensions of the Civil Rights movement.

Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman to serve in the Senate, put her name forward for the 2004 presidential race but she was forced to withdraw before the Iowa caucuses in the wake of a number of financial scandals and criticism of her by black lawmakers and human rights leaders for meeting with dictator Sani Abacha during a trip to Nigeria in 1996. I was very sorry to see her fall by the wayside.

Other black candidates for president? The Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for the 1984 Democratic Party nomination but failed to get it amidst questions that questioned his handling of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalitions finances and his personal morality. I doubt he could have won it even if his record had been pristine. He was already tarnished with accusations of using his association with the Rev. King to advance his career. And if it had not been that, it would have been something else. The fact is that his race was a barrier to the nomination.

The Rev. Al Sharpton ran in 2004 and was painted with the same kinds of calumnies that dogged Jesse Jackson. Its interesting to note that when a black leader speaks up for his people, he is immediately condemned as being self-promoting.

A cursory glance brings other black faces to the fore. Colin Powell? In spite of the pressure brought to bear on him, he was clear that he was not interested. He would have been the most likely African American to get elected precisely because of his "good soldier" persona. That he advocated affirmative action can be explained by his career in the military. Absent the ground-breaking Executive Order by President Harry S Truman desegregating the Armed Forces it is unlikely that Powell would have reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Oh yes, and then there's Alan Keyes, but I digress.

Latino candidates are even more invisible. New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson has thrown his hat into the ring. Despite his strong foreign policy credentials and his governorship, a traditional springboard to a presidential nomination, I would be surprised if he got half the press that the African American or female candidates will get. Latino leaders have been marginalized in all but a few communities.

A considerable number of American women have run for president since Victoria Claflin Woodhull ran in 1872 on the Equal Rights Party ticket because she wanted to send a message that it was time for a woman in the White House. Few, however, have run on a major party ticket. The one who was considered to be the most likely to get elected in 2000 was Republican Elizabeth Hanford Dole, a former Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labor under Ronald Reagan. She is also the wife of retired Senator and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole of Kansas. As formidable as she was perceived to be, her campaign did not reach the Republican convention for lack of funds. I wonder if her husband's shilling for Viagra on television commercials hurt her candidacy. She ran for the Senate from her home state of North Carolina in 2003 and is in her first term.

This brings us back to Senator Hillary Clinton. Her detractors are quick to remind us time and again that she is a polarizing figure. What major politician isn’t? It is a matter of degree; this early on, it is hard to tell the impact of that accusation. The Left is quick to jump on her failure to condemn the Iraq war from the outset. The hard, indigestible fact is that if she had, she would have lost her viability in the minds of many.

After all, President Bush and his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, claimed that they had absolute evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Like most people on the Left, I thought he was lying, but I wonder if I would have voted to invade Iraq faced with the purported evidence and the responsibility to protect the nation that a senator holds. Senator Barak Obama was prescient in his opposition to the war but he was not in the Senate yet when the votes were cast.

Conservatives get apoplectic when it comes to the Clintons. The middle of the country regards them as spawn of Satan. I doubt that anyone who is truly progressive can get elected. Now I hear that one of the Rupert Murdoch papers "revealed" that Senator Obama spent four years in a Madraza (Islamic school) in Indonesia. The initial report was that Hillary's campaign had put out that report. The fact is that Senator Obama wrote about his youthful years in
Jakarta in one of his books but he was and continues to be a Christian. But the majority of Americans don't read so the lie will continue to make the rounds, and the truth will be overlooked in favor of the perception that he tried to suppress this story and Hillary was the sneaky Pete who leaked it.

Senator Clinton has many things in her favor. She is in her second Senate term from New York having been reelected easily. Having worked with Bill in his two campaigns as well as own two senatorial campaigns, she knows the challenges and pitfalls that are still new to her challengers. She is smart. After two terms of the current resident of the White House, she will restore the sense that the nation is led by the best and brightest. In addition to representing her constituents well, she has won the grudging respect of conservatives in upstate New York as well as those across the aisle in the Senate. She has the support of the organized women’s movement. Finally, she has Bill who loves to campaign, is a formidable fund-raiser, was well-loved despite his peccadilloes and left the White House with the highest approval ratings in our time: 66% compared to Ronald Reagan's 63%.

When countries elect leaders who are not from the dominant class--in our case, white men--they elect conservative leaders whose beliefs and agenda hew closely to those of the most conservative group. So for England, it was arch-conservative Margaret Thatcher. For us to elect a black president it would have to be a Colin Powell; a woman, Elizabeth Dole. For Senator Clinton to get elected, a lot will depend on how conservative she appears to the electorate.

I believe that that's why she has been so circumspect about her response to the war and why she has been so successful in the Senate. Ironically, she is perceived as conservative by the Left but ultra-liberal by the conservatives. Bill was solidly a centrist, he wasn't an ultra-liberal. If he hadn't gotten in trouble for the Monica business, the spin on his administration might be very different.

Even when a white man runs today, he has to demonstrate his conservative credentials. The charismatic Senator John McCain, a conservative Republican, has had to backpedal to make himself more conservative than he is naturally. George Bush 41 went anti-abortion to get elected as did Ronald Reagan. I'm waiting to see how far to the right Senator McCain will go to get elected, for if anyone wants it, he does.

How does the Left achieve its agenda in the White House? Can a Senator Bernie Sanders (the Socialist former governor of Vermont) get elected to the White House? I would like to think that it is possible but it is not likely that it will happen at a time when war and fear dominate the country. The atmosphere of the politics in our country is a complex mix of elements. The politicians tend to rule from the right or the center in fearful times because people want to hold on to the semblance of control that they get from those positions. Advocacy groups must raise their voices, write, campaign, and pressure to force our elected leaders to make our concerns their own. If Hillary were president I doubt that she would ever be as progressive as I'd like but at least she would be a friendly face on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Politics is the art of the possible. It is a negotiation. What we in the loyal opposition must do is to represent our ideals to the pragmatists in Congress. By its nature, Congress cannot do what we do. Congressional representatives have to worry about a huge number of issues and constituents. We have to make our voices heard over the din.

The Left, through organizations like Move-On has shown itself to be formidable opponent. We will not get all we want in a presidential candidate but it is better to have a friendly ear in the corridors of power than to be shut out as completely as Bush-Cheney administration has done to us. Furthermore, the mainstream media must also be willing to challenge any administration that comes into office. For too long it has offered deference to those in power instead of acting as the watchdog for the people.

It is gratifying to look at the field of Democratic candidates and see the diversity there. That is a big change from when I voted for the first time in 1972. Who knows, in my lifetime we may actually see two black, Latino or female candidates running for president.

And the Republicans? Well, they may just have to press Condi into running for president. Planting black faces at the GOP convention just will not be enough.