# Will there ever be a woman USA President or Vice President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214 "2010-11-02T15:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/41 "2010-11-02T23:50:48Z")
FWIW, from 2003: > [@The First Black President](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-black-president/204221/1): > > Also, to keep the debate up, I was wondering what factors a black candidate possess to be electable in a country that is still racially divided. > > I offer a few possibilities: > > 1. Wasn’t part of the Civil Rights Movement. May be tied to it indirectly, but rose to prominence through other career paths. I think middle America is uncomfortable with the civil rights movement despite believing in Equal Rights. > 2. Moderate DEM. Someone who can appeal to the moderates in a general election. > 3. A good speaker. This is my LEAST favorite, because I finding it VERY condescending when someone says a black man is “very well spoken.” (SEE Chris Rock’s comedy). Yet, I think it would be important. Even people with bigotry in their heart could say “He’s different.” > 4. Not a Minister. I think this is true of all candidates, but I notice a large amount of black politicians are also ministers. > > One I wonder about, and please note this question makes me uncomfortable: would Americans be more likely to vote for a light skinned black man over a darker skin black person? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/42 "2010-11-03T00:04:34Z")
Wow. **middleman** nailed it. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/43 "2010-11-03T02:10:40Z")
I can’t believe that, in 2010, anyone would ask this question . . . especially with the word “ever.” I actually had to check the OP, thinking that it must be a zombie. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/44 "2010-11-03T02:28:25Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I can’t believe that, in 2010, anyone would ask this question . . . especially with the word “ever.” I actually had to check the OP, thinking that it must be a zombie. Same here. I think the answer is a clear “yes, of course.” I don’t think there is any question about it. I expect to see a woman president in my lifetime (I’m 35). ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/45 "2010-11-03T05:33:14Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > And riding a tiger. > Which is also on fire. I dunno, unless the tiger on fire is wearing a leather jacket with spikes on it and can growl _Highway to Hell_, that candidate seems a bit effete still. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/46 "2010-11-03T07:09:14Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I can’t believe that, in 2010… I’m noticing this a lot lately. “It’s 2010!” Did I miss something this year that’s supposed to be liberalizing everyone’s opinions? I’ll go against the grain here – we won’t see a woman president for a long, long time. 50 years or more, and it’d require very unusual circumstances. You can find plenty of women who will explain that leaders should be men, let alone what most men think. Many countries other than the U.S. have been electing women to equivalent positions for the first time in the only the last couple of years. The rest of the world is extremely left wing compared to the U.S., so a big lag time should be expected. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/47 "2010-11-03T08:58:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I dunno, unless the tiger on fire is wearing a leather jacket with spikes on it and can growl _Highway to Hell_, that candidate seems a bit effete still. Naw, at that point everyone will think he’s probably trying to make up for something. I of course mean the tiger. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/48 "2010-11-03T12:10:07Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > I’m noticing this a lot lately. “It’s 2010!” Did I miss something this year that’s supposed to be liberalizing everyone’s opinions? > > I’ll go against the grain here – we won’t see a woman president for a long, long time. 50 years or more, and it’d require very unusual circumstances. You can find plenty of women who will explain that leaders should be men, let alone what most men think. Many countries other than the U.S. have been electing women to equivalent positions for the first time in the only the last couple of years. The rest of the world is extremely left wing compared to the U.S., so a big lag time should be expected. What you missed is that right-wingers don’t consider it a liberal opinion. When it became obvious that he’d win the Republican nomination in 2008, John McCain looked around for a running mate he thought would be _ **more** _ popular with right-wingers; he picked one of the female Governors that Republicans had cheerfully voted into office – and he picked right, because they had no trouble rallying behind her nationally. (I note in passing that Republicans just cast their votes for three more female Governor-elects last night, doing so just as unconcernedly as ever.) Anyhow, the McCain/Palin ticket lost to the Democrat who promptly made a woman his Secretary of State; he of course replaced a Republican who’d made a woman his Secretary of State, who in turn replaced the Democrat who’d done likewise, because, honestly, _ **neither** _ side has a problem with that – or with putting a woman on the Supreme Court, or with voting 'em into the Senate, or the House. I don’t think it’s a left/right issue any longer; do you have polls that say otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![wipetheclock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b19c9b/32.png) [@wipetheclock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wipetheclock)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/49 "2010-11-03T14:07:16Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > I’ll go against the grain here – we won’t see a woman president for a long, long time. 50 years or more, and it’d require very unusual circumstances. You can find plenty of women who will explain that leaders should be men, let alone what most men think. I agree that a poll would show a solid chunk of the population agreeing with the statement “men make better leaders” or even “men should lead” but quite a few of those people are willing to vote for a woman they agree with over a man they hate (lesser of two evils). The percentage of the population that would never vote for a woman under any circumstances has to be quite small and composed mostly very far right Christian fundamentalists who would stay home rather than vote. See women in Congress, serving as Governors, and Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton for evidence. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/50 "2010-11-03T14:28:16Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I don’t think it’s a left/right issue any longer; do you have polls that say otherwise? Excellent points, mate. It may well be that the first female president will be someone like Obama: a relative newcomer to the scene who fills the “none of the above” niche space in a political landscape where all the major players have too much baggage to get elected. Obama got in because the candidates who had groomed themselves for years–Clinton and McCain–were untenable to the electorate at large. The first woman to hold the oval office may well be someone who went through college on an ROTC scholarship, parlayed her service into a diplomatic posting after finishing law school, then served as a banal state attorney general which allowed her to springboard into the Senate, where she kept her nose clean and dodged nasty votes for her first term. It sure won’t be Palin. In her short time on the national stage, she’s picked up as much baggage as Nixon was carrying in 1960. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/51 "2010-11-03T14:40:03Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > It sure won’t be Palin. In her short time on the national stage, she’s picked up as much baggage as Nixon was carrying in 1960. The ‘new Nixon’ then won in '68, which suggests that in 2016 we could get the ‘new Palin.’ ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/52 "2010-11-03T15:03:22Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > The ‘new Nixon’ then won in '68, which suggests that in 2016 we could get the ‘new Palin.’ Except that Nixon was an exceptionally intelligent man with tremendous background and experience, as well as the credibility of having been Vice President to a man most remembered fondly. Palin has none of these things. Her popularity is essentially a knee-jerk appeal to the “just folks” elements of her party. There’s no depth there, and certainly no potential to win a national election. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/53 "2010-11-03T15:08:55Z")
September, 2016: “One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something—a gift—after the election. A man down in Wasilla heard Todd on the radio mention the fact that our two youngest, Piper and Trig, would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little husky dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Juneau. Black and white spotted. And our little boy—Trig, the 8-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna shoot it.” ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/54 "2010-11-04T01:41:56Z")
If not for Oprah, we would have President Hillary Clinton now. The problem is the women like Clinton, Ferraro, Palin were not independent candidates. Clinton road off her husband, Palin and Ferraro were just tokens, brought in in hopes they’d get votes. This isn’t to say tokens can’t win, they obviously do well at lower level, but they don’t rise in their own right. There never has really been a strong woman candidate in her own right. It’ll take some time before we see that. Part of it is child rearing. Women simply take time off of their careers. They LIKE to be with their kids and rear them. This isn’t a handicap in of itself, but it removes them from their jobs. It’s like any job you leave it for awhile, when you come back you’re farther behind then when you left. It will happen someday but more and more people men and women, black and white and well everyone is starting to see the presidency as a “status job” and not power. A senator with seniority or a supreme court justice can have a lot more power and influence in the long run. A 20 or 25 year stay in the senate looks better than four or eight years at the top. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/55 "2010-11-04T03:50:58Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Hillary Clinton came pretty close to winning in 2008: she lost the primaries pretty narrowly, and if she’d won the primaries would have pretty likely been elected. In 2016 she will be 69, an age when it’s not impossible to be elected – Reagan was that age when first elected. > > So it could be Palin in 2012, or Clinton in 2016 – it’s just a matter of time now before a woman in elected as POTUS. Agree completely. The ranks of potential female candidates is still thinner than the ranks of potential male candidates, but the sense that no woman could win belongs to the past. Hillary Clinton could have done it. She wasn’t easy for Obama to beat and if he hadn’t, McCain wouldn’t have either. I don’t know that Palin could pull it off but I don’t think that being female is among her top 5 barriers. EDIT: Hillary Clinton did not ride on Bill Clinton’s coattails; if anything I think if it were not for her pushing him he would not have become President. She’s always been the one with the hunger & thirst for it. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/56 "2010-11-04T04:47:42Z")
The real question is how far are we from a black female president? There is a shortage of black women in national politics right now. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/57 "2010-11-04T14:14:56Z")
I’m with most of the posters here. A female President would not be such a novelty that it would bring shock and awe to most voters. It is just a matter of the right candidate rising through the ranks and getting the nomination and subsequent election. You might as well ask, when will someone from Florida (or Colorado, or West Virginia) be elected President, and the answer would be the same. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/58 "2010-11-04T14:16:56Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > She’s always been the one with the hunger & thirst for it. If she’d had just a bit more, her husband might not have gotten in such trouble in that anteroom. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/59 "2010-11-04T15:54:26Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The real question is how far are we from a black female president? There is a shortage of black women in national politics right now. I think it’s well within the realm of possibility. I’d wager it’d come from the Republican side, a Condi Rice-type of candidate. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214/60 "2010-11-05T07:43:10Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > It may well be that the first female president will be someone like Obama Obama won despite being black, in part, because he was lucky enough to run when the other party couldn’t win with anyone and his only real opposition was a woman. A woman could win in a similar situation, but she’d have to be lucky enough to run against someone who’d be even worse. Maybe a Muslim, an atheist, or someone who isn’t very telegenic and was only running because of seniority in the party or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-ever-be-a-woman-usa-president-or-vice-president/559214.md?page=4)