GIDDY FOR LIDDY
CRITTENDEN, DANIELLE
GIDDY FOR LIDDY by Danielle Crittenden IT WAS A WOMAN, COKIE ROBERTS, who dared blurt out the real reason why Elizabeth Dole has been catapulted into the first rank of potential Republican...
...Her political experience is nil—or, more exactly, vicarious...
...We believe that Elizabeth Dole has all of these qualities and more...
...She doesn’t faint...
...But the strategem won’t necessarily win any substantial number of votes...
...She is “impressive...
...If true, it would suggest that Elizabeth Dole shares the same troubling character flaw that doomed her husband...
...Black Americans rightly wince every time whites refer to a successful black as “articulate...
...She can give a speech...
...The slogan could be ‘I won’t embarrass you in front of your children,’ and I think that she could come on very strong in that direction...
...If Bob Dole had been elected, however, it would have been a very different story: Sorry about the state dinner, hon, but I’ve got to get to that disaster-relief meeting...
...He was a brave man of sterling character...
...When Bob Dole ran for the presidency, Mrs...
...They don’t detail her political experience, her stances on the issues, her vision for the country and its future...
...Dole declared that while she was happy to stump for him (and stump like a trooper she did), she had no intention of serving as a full-time first lady if he won...
...It is quite possible that Elizabeth Dole’s feminist stances were something short of sincere—that they were designed with an eye on the press and would be hastily abandoned if they showed any signs of alarming Republican primary voters...
...Women have rarely voted for Republican women in greater numbers than men have,” observes poll analyst Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute...
...They know it’s a double-edged compliment in which are embedded offensively low expectations: “Look at him...
...Is there any better case for her than that...
...It is certainly an excellent first step that Mrs...
...When future generations try to grapple with what damage Bill Clinton did to the office of the presidency, they might do well to study that quote...
...And her vision is couched in such wispy generalities as to defy not merely analysis, but comprehension...
...And what little we do know of Elizabeth Dole’s positions on non-transportation issues ought to trouble conservatives...
...Is it really an improvement to put an equally uncertain woman there instead...
...In 1992 and 1996, the Republicans put at the top of their ticket men who could not explain why they wanted the job of president or what they would do if they got it...
...But he lost because ultimately voters decided that there was no there there...
...His wife may be more dynamic—indeed, she may be the Martha Stewart of federal bureaucracy—but underneath the hairspray and lemon-yellow suits, she emits that same strange tinny ping...
...The difference is, she’s in a skirt, and I think that the fact she’s in a skirt does make a difference...
...So instead her admirers gush about how “accomplished” and “smart” she is...
...Yes, when she was President Bush’s secretary of labor, she strongly enforced child labor laws and workplace safety requirements...
...How could they...
...They have argued eloquently that blacks and whites, men and women should all be judged by the same standards...
...When the pundits who praise this woman who has never been elected to any office refuse to wonder, as they would wonder of a comparable man, “Can she govern...
...they are guilty of exactly the same double- standard as those fire departments that hire women who can’t lift a hose...
...But that’s not reassuring either...
...She’d keep her day job at the Red Cross, thanks...
...But even the newly launched, unofficial Elizabeth- Dole-for-President Web site offers no guidance as to how she might use the great powers of the presidency, other than, of course, not-embarrassing-thechildren: “What makes a great President...
...But what do those words mean...
...Is that the best they think we can do...
...Nor does the strategem do very much to assure effective leadership once the election is won...
...And when she was President Reagan’s secretary of transportation, she ordered that rear-window brake light onto the backs of cars...
...As soon as she makes her views known, we will post them...
...She won’t embarrass you in front of your children...
...I really do,” Roberts said on ABC’s This Week...
...She has supported such dubious feminist policies as comparable worth...
...Or are Republicans, in their eagerness to prove to the female electorate that they care (and not just about Clinton’s sex life), in danger of repeating the mistake the Democrats made after nominating Geraldine Ferraro in 1984...
...She chaired the Glass Ceiling Commission, which concluded that discrimination depresses women’s average wages below those of men, a finding that commands little respect among economists...
...GIDDY FOR LIDDY by Danielle Crittenden IT WAS A WOMAN, COKIE ROBERTS, who dared blurt out the real reason why Elizabeth Dole has been catapulted into the first rank of potential Republican presidential candidates...
...Bob Dole had a delightful, folksy manner...
...Danielle Crittenden is the editor of the Women’s Quarterly and author of What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman, just published by Simon & Schuster...
...After what we’ve just been through, I think that women are looking better...
...He can talk...
...Most people would say character, experience, and charisma...
...But what about the second step...
...She is “competent...
...What Elizabeth Dole believes is a closely guarded secret...
...Conservatives have long fought the affirmative- action mentality that says your skin color or your sex organs should give you an edge over more qualified candidates when applying for a job...
...they are guilty of something perhaps even worse...
...But when Republicans speak about an Elizabeth Dole candidacy, they don’t speak the way they would about a man...
...Dole is not a sex-crazed embarrassment to the nation...
...Strategically, as Michael Barone notes, the mere fact of running a woman might be a good, short-term PR move for Republicans: It would “disarm the Democratic weapons systems” and prove—if such a fact needs proving post-Paula Jones—that Republicans respect women more than Democrats do...
...Is that really all Republicans demand of a female would-be president...
...Indeed, in many ways she has proven herself a more consistent feminist than Hillary Clinton...
...Do a Nexis search and you can come up with more than 500 references to “Hillary Clinton” falling within ten words of the adjective “smart...
...She is “strong...
...Her stances on the issues are a profound mystery...
...A similar fog of accolades surrounds Elizabeth Dole...
...She even redecorated Union Station and cleared away the regulations that inhibited shopping at Reagan National Airport—Washingtonians thank her for both those achievements...
...Clinton, despite all her revolutionary rhetoric, has turned out to be quite a traditional first lady—probably much more traditional than she would have liked...
...And when they shrink from the even bigger question, “How would she govern...
...But then the posting goes on to concede, “At this time, there is no information on ElizaElizabeth Dole’s official positions on any issues...
...As far as past views are concerned, she has been head of the Red Cross for the past eight years and, as president, it would not have been prudent for her to take a stand on any political issues...
...Women ought to feel the same way about the words “accomplished” and “smart...
Vol. 4 • January 1999 • No. 18
