Raising Consciousness, Raising Awareness

On this July 4^th,  I would like to resume the First Woman

 

President blog with a pledge and a renewed purpose.. to help find and

 

to help get elected…. a woman to the Unites States Presidency…

 

While FWP did not blog during the  Clinton campaign so as to show no

 

partisanship and live up to our 501C3 non-profit stature, we can now

 

resume with the opportunity to assess, review, and evaluate the

 

incredibly valuable information the campaign itself provided as a

 

learning experience for every woman intent on pursuing public office.

 

Whether her election will be to the local  precinct office or to  the

 

office of the  US Presidency, the entry gates  to these offices will

 

always say and say to all:  “welcome”….”welcome to the campaign for

 

this office”….

 

It must be with a full awareness of what exactly that “welcomes”

 

means to a woman candidate the higher she goes in our US election

 

system. And it must be a clear understanding to any woman making an

 

initial campaign effort what she takes on. 

 

There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind in America that Clinton

 

was going to experience sexism.  What Clinton missed was an

 

historical opportunity to talk about this subject right up until the

 

January day she could have been sworn in as our 44^th US President….

 

 

Call me foolish, but what this campaign was all about was not the

 

issues, but the phenomenal occurrence of the first woman and the first

 

African/America….. simultaneously vying for the Democratic Party

 

nod to run against Republican nominee, John McCain.

 

My feminist FWP political antenna tell me that this 2008 particular

campaign for the US Presidency is big….that  this is campaign that

makes the kind of history for which America is made.  This 2008  US

Presidential nomination quest has produced one of the most significant

peacetime (voter) revolutions in America’s history. 

 

The choice of either candidate begins a new chapter.  The choice of

 

neither would not be a surprise…..an acute disappointment, but not a

 

surprise.

 

Next Friday will be our next conversation on this gender issue for

 

women candidates..

 

Please join us on 7/11

 

 

 

Make Gender Count

The most important goal of this FWP blog has been to make the case for a woman to be elected  President of the United States.

At FWP we are living witnesses to our American history being written as once again we are fielding a woman candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Just as we witnessed Carol Moseley Braun as our most recent woman candidate for this Office.

And while it has been our passion and purpose to make the case for a woman in the White House, we will need to take a short break from this effort.

Because there is currently a woman candidate for the US Presidency, it becomes important to suspend blogging at this time until her candidacy has been determined.  FWP has been created to educate, but not to be partisan. 

 FWP will next post on July 4, 2008 with an update.

This has been a wonderful experience and will continue.

Thank you.       Please return on July 4, 2008      

  

  

The Gender Card

Most amazingly the woman who is now a candidate for the U.S. Presidency could be a woman candidate coming from either of the two major political parties.  There wouldn’t be any difference in the campaign process as the campaign structure of either party is based totally on a male construct.   

And therefore if she falters, the construct calls for mortally wounding the campaign, no less.  Or if  she shows her superiority among the other candidates, the construct calls for mortally wounding the campaign, no less.

It is a code of behavior without regard to gender.  It’s a classic struggle that has always been a part of men’s behavior around power. 

A woman therefore chosing to campaign based on this kind of male model cannot win.  

She cannot claim the gender card when she has never differentiated her campaign from her male counterparts.  It certainly is accepted and conceivable that there are legtimate gender issues for a woman presidential candidate, and the failure to deal with them specifically is a crucial mistake.

The question now becomes one of whether there are lessons to be learned from the campaigns of Michelle Bachelet or Angela Merkel?  Or not…. Ó

Thank you          Please return  Sunday, November 25th 

   

Feminine and Feminism, No Two Alike.

The two words, feminine and feminist, come to mind as FWP learns more about the first woman to be elected Chancellor of Germany.

The election of Angela Merkel evidently defied all the odds that sought to make her not electable because she was not sufficiently feminine.  These were the strongest odds cast her way by the media.  But evidently not by the detemination of the voters. They liked what they heard.

FWP believes Chancellor Merkel serves as a timely and appropriate role model for any woman who would run for the U.S. Presidency. She first differentiated herself as a candidate who is authentic and real.  She then differentiated herself in governance in a manner that is unlike the manner of governance associated with any of her predecessors serving as Chancellor….all men. 

This is a difference that is truly feminist. 

In the United States, (just as in Germany) the media still wants the voters to vote for women candidates by what they like to see. A woman candidate must pass the media feminine test. 

Will this deliberate blurring and objectifying  inhibit or enable voters in America?  Will they will exercise the same wisdom as their German counterparts? 

What we do know at FWP is that Angela Merkel displays the kind of leadership and value system rarely if ever found  among elected officials today.  It revolves around her choice to use a different application of power. She is perhaps the first woman in  elected leadership today to understand how to do this effectively as a woman.

What do the voters of Germany know that we need to still learn in America ?Ó

Thank you.     Please return Sunday November 18th

When is a Pile On a Pile On?

FWP says welcome to the world of Presidential election campaigns 2008 style!  And welcome to the way a woman candidate will experience this campaign.  

There certainly have been various and different ways during previous Presidential campaigns when women candidates for the U.S. Presidency have stumbled and failed in their effort.  There has been no success.  The pattern of defeat has been consistent… beginning in 1872,  and again in 1884, 1888, 1964, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984,1988,, 1992, 2004.  http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/CanHistory/prescand.pdf

FWP counts 2008 as rounding out to a dozen the number of women candidates in U.S. Presidential campaigns thus far.   

Ironically, the mechanics of the current campaign of the woman running for the U.S. Presidency are working in a way that no previous woman running for the U.S. Presidency has ever enjoyed.

Campaign fundraisng that is of historic proportions! Polling down to a science.  Perhaps no one has higher visibility except Oprah Winfrey.  

And a campaign media that is riveted to the former First Lady and the history she is making.

This is all happening within the current system of electoral politics, which men have honed since 1789.  This is a system of practices and procedures which are not welcoming or receptive to the candidacies of  women.  And yet the current woman campaigning for the U.S. Presidency has decided to structure her campaign operations accordingly. This creates barriers to success.

One of the particular ways in 2008 to create barriers will be a Queen of the Hill version of King of the Hill.  Clinton’s perceived dominance of the Presidential Primary races is going to get her challenged by the six or seven men involved in this same campaign.  The campaign media will augment the effort.  Call it a pile on or anything else that comes to mind, but it is meant to devalue, deny and demean her candidacy.

If Clinton accepts that she is playing by the boys’ rules, then she accepts that she becomes one of the boys.  

FWP suggests that a woman able to capture the Oval Office will not use the same path built by men to the U.S. Presidency.Ó

  Thank you       Please return Sunday, November 11th

Perhaps A Little of What Argentina Has.

She is the wife of a popular President. She is a lawyer.  She has been elected to serve in the Senate and has experienced a rather meteoric rise in electoral politics.  She is a smart, savvy woman, who is a seasoned politician.

She has been elected First Woman President.

The country is Argentina.  The successful Presidential candidate is Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Regardless of the similarities there are a world of differences between the Presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Cristina Kirchner and we will see them evolve through the next several months. 

What does remains as the most obvious in the overall view, is the power that each husband of each woman brings to the campaign.  There is no doubt about that power. 

To the extent that neither woman, not having the legacy of First Lady, would have secured for her campaign the level of media attention accorded so far.

On the other hand, Clinton is working the candidate role diligently while Kirchner held her campaign at arm’s length.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that both these women bring a two-for-one approach to the Presidency.  In Argentina, this seems perfectly acceptable.  Would the same acceptability  hold for Clinton? 

Voters know this is an historic opportunity and yet it remains to be determined how voters in America view this combination.  Clinton could be elected only because of her husband’s experience and she could be denied election only because voters envision too much power being accrued.Ó   

Thank you                                   Please return Sunday, November 4th

Radical Steps that Might Work.

 

FWP believes that similar to the radical steps that produced
the 19th amendment, so there has to be radical steps taken to produce our First Woman President.

 

FWP means that in this case “radical” will produce:

     1.  A national standard of campaign behavior for any woman candidate pursuing public office, which currently total a half million in number across America, including the U.S. Presidency.

     2.  A limited and specified time frame for campaign activities.

     3.  A publicly financed campaigns in each of the fifty states.

 

That’s just for starters…..Ó

Thank you                  Please return on Wednesday, October 31st            

           

A Measure of Money

FWP is meant to be realistic as well as being ever hopeful about electing our First Woman President.

So when the posting last week was about the greatly diminished collective trust we currently hold as a country for the people we elect, it was a realistic assessment.   

Take into consideration the current presidential campaign by a woman who is raising massive sums of money.  This is not her way of building trust as much as it is how she is building defenses in a campaign environment where the media is intent on controversy.

The current system of electoral Presidential politics doesn’t allow for any measure of success that isn’t first measured by money.  This is the operating reality.

And is it possible to restore trust if the First Woman President wins her campaign by using those very tools that have destroyed voter trust? 

Will the cynicism be assuaged and trust restored with voters if they are subject to more of the same?

It remains to be seen.Ó

Thank you                 Please return Sunday, October 28th 

Little or No Trust

The voters, citizens and residents of America today find themselves less willing and less capable of trusting those who are their elected representatives.

Additionally, as a group they also have experienced a diminished trust in our country’s highest elected office, the Office of the U.S. Presidency.

Historically, we know that voters in America are acculturated to trusting their elected leadership.  Loss of that trust has produced cynicism and a measurable reduction in voting numbers each year across the country. 

The creation of a trust-gap is cause for worry.

This “trust-gap” began in the sixties… and has become more extensive each year. At this point FWP believes that any attempt to restore voter trust can start only by electing a woman to the U.S. Presidency.  What do you think? 

As soon as possible perhaps?Ó

Thank you         Please visit again on Wednesday, October 24th 

Identifying A Half-Million Elective Offices For Women

For more than  ten years FWP has been concerned with getting women elected to office, any one of the half-million elective offices that are spread across our fifty States.

FWP believes that from these offices a woman will  ultimately advance to the highest office, the U.S. Presidency.

When FWP says a half-million elective offices, it has a ring of optimism.  And with it,  the possibility to achieve these goals.

This half-million number is sufficient to  accelerate the needed gender parity in our public service environment. But to work,  this acceleration calls for identifying the number of  candidate opportunities for women in each State. 

FWP wants an inventory and count of all the  public offices available by election , in each one of our States.  

And then FWP wants to make that State by State information available at a single source.

Women in each State can know about the candidate opportunities in their own State. 

Using Connecticut as a sample the count would start with the General Assembly elections and then all the Constitutional Offices.  Also added to the count on the State level besides the Legislative and the Executive Branches, are the elective offices within the Judicial Branch of State Government.

On the  municipal level, currently there are in Connecticut  one hundred sixty nine separate municipalities with different, separate forms  and shapes of governance.  And each municipality has its own particular  number of elective office to fill.  More to add to the count.

And then there is the number of Connecticut’s elective offices on the federal level.  One more area of counting for candidate opportunites. 

This presents the possible total number of elective offices in Connecticut to be in the  thousands, not the hundreds.  That is a considerable number of candidate opportunities to start with in one small State.  A good number for women to review and assess.

While FWP is working to confirm total count of elective offices in Connecticut, perhaps readers in any of the other fifty States would like to be assigned the counting of their State for FWP.  Only from the numbers will we begin to tell the complete story of the half-million candidate opportunities. 

FWP is encouraged that women have  recognized that their entry  into public offices as a candidate on the local level, is a fundamental element to successfully electing our First Woman President.  That’s a powerful recognition.Ó

Thank you               Please return on Sunday, October 21st