Keller @ Large: We're Ready For A Woman President
BOSTON (CBS) - The death of former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro the other day was a sad reminder of a glaring omission in American political history – the failure to ever nominate, let alone elect, a female president.
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How is it that half the population, with more than its share of talented, qualified possible candidates, has been excluded from the pinnacle of political office?
For a possible answer, consider the candidacy of the man who became the first African-American president, a campaign that explicitly ran on the notion that Americans were ready to be color-blind in the voting booth.
In a memorable passage from the 2004 convention speech that made him a national figure, then-State Senator Barack Obama said: "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America." And he went on to denounce a laundry list of the stereotypes of modern-day identity politics.
Back when Ferraro ran in 1984, identity politics was at its peak.
Her candidacy never established a rationale beyond it's time to elect a woman – when she turned out to be an acerbic campaigner, she was denounced as a word that rhymes with witch by none other than her opponent's wife, Barbara Bush.
She also suffered from negative stereotyping of Italian-Americans because of some dubious business dealings of her husband.
The Obama campaign of 2008 – and locally, the Patrick campaign of 2006 – showed how identity politics could be transcended by a candidate who refused to play the identity card.
The desperate effort of some Hillary Clinton supporters to play the gender card in 2008 was a flop.
As always, the voters are well ahead of the political elites in rejecting useless old political biases.
We are ready for a woman president – one who is qualified and inspiring and running on the basis of that, not her gender – and the woman who breaks through will be one that has learned the crucial lessons of what Geraldine Ferraro did wrong and Barack Obama did right.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
