Obama, Are You Listening? This One's for Your Girls

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

July 31, 2008

It's hard to believe, but the Democratic National Convention is now less than a month away, and following right on its heels comes the Republican National Convention. This means the media are obsessing, as they love to do, about the presidential candidates' potential running mates.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, appeared on Meet the Press on July 27 and was pressed by Tom Brokaw to discuss the criteria, timing and prospects for his selection for vice president. Obama refused to name any names, but he did offer this insight: "I want somebody who I'm compatible with, who I can work with, who has a shared vision..."

Well, I hope that shared vision includes full equality for women, because some of the names that have been floated recently aren't particularly reassuring.

We just had one of the closest primary contests I can recall -- with every last state and territory seriously in play, and 18 million votes cast for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Feminist voters, women and men alike, backed Clinton because they believed she would have their backs if she reached the White House. They were confident that her VP, Cabinet and federal court selections would reflect the equality principles she espoused. Some of these voters almost immediately transitioned to Obama once Clinton threw her support behind the senator from Illinois. But other voters are still grieving the loss of a dream. Others are taking a wait and see approach, and one of the things they are waiting on is Obama's VP pick.

One longtime NOW activist puts it this way, "I have my fingers crossed that Barack Obama picks a running mate who is a partner, who is capable of stepping in, and who is dedicated to the principles of equality."

This week the press began pushing the story that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was a likely choice to fill out the Obama ticket. Other names on the "short list" may include Senators Joe Biden from Delaware and Evan Bayh from Indiana, former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, governors Kathleen Sebelius (Kan.) and Janet Napolitano (Ariz.), and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel from Nebraska. Sen. Clinton's name remains in the mix, but most prognosticators say it's unlikely she'll get the call. Indeed, Senator Clinton may well have taken her name out of the hat early on.

The New York Times puts forth a frustrating Catch-22 in the veepstakes, claiming that there's little chance Obama will choose Clinton, but that hopefuls like Sebelius shouldn't hold their breath either because "if a woman were to be placed on the ticket, could it be anyone other than Mrs. Clinton?" Um, because Clinton was such a strong contender, that should eliminate all other prospective Democratic female VPs from the field? John Edwards lost, so does that mean Obama shouldn't consider any white males for the VP slot? Of course not. Only in a patriarchy are we allowed just one woman trailblazer at a time!

So, let's look at some of the men whose names are being bandied about. Gov. Kaine is reportedly very close with Obama and is supposedly the frontrunner at this time. This concerns me a great deal, as it should all feminists. Kaine, a former Catholic missionary, is on the record as having "a faith-based opposition to abortion," and having promised to enforce the (numerous) restrictions in Virginia law. We think Barack Obama should look for someone who trusts women to make these important decisions with their doctors and their families.

Nunn is another unacceptable choice. The New York Times says that Nunn "was known for the most part as a conservative Democrat, and he led a high-profile fight against Bill Clinton's effort to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military." Nunn voted "yes" on prohibiting same-sex marriage and "no" on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Is this the kind of change Obama wants, because it sounds to me like more of the same from the last eight years.

Bayh and Biden both have "mixed" records on reproductive rights, though Biden has shown leadership for women in his authoring of the landmark Violence Against Women Act.

And what about Hagel? Would Obama really consider running with a Republican? An anti- woman Republican, no less? The fact that Hagel has yet to endorse his party's presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain, coupled with his strong opposition to the war in Iraq, has led some to believe that he is a possibility for the number two slot on the Dem ticket.

But wait a minute. Hagel is as anti-abortion as they come, receiving a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee. On the issue of LGBT rights, he is rated 0% by the Human Rights Campaign, and the NAACP gave him an 11% rating, or an "F" on civil rights.

What a great way to lose women's votes -- and hurt girls' and women's future. In a year when an unprecedented number of feminist and progressive voters are energized and engaged in the electoral process, what a mistake it would be for Obama to turn away from his base in perhaps the most important decision he will make between now and the convention. A misguided attempt to reach out to evangelicals and socially conservative Democrats can only backfire. I fear that if women have to choose between a ticket with Chuck Hagel and a ticket with John McCain, they're likely to stay home.

This may be my last chance to do so, so allow me to make one final plug for Clinton. Could Hagel or Nunn or Bayh or Kaine have garnered anywhere near the number of votes that Clinton did in the primaries? And she brings a complementary experience that strengthens the ticket, not to mention those 18 million votes. Another woman who ought to be on the short list is second-term Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona -- a hugely popular border-state governor who was ranked by Time magazine as one of the nation's top five governors.

The simple political fact is that Sen. Obama needs to reach out to women, and demonstrate that he is a true proponent of equality for all. He needs to ask for women's support the same way Clinton did. It was the first time in a long time that we've been talked to by a candidate who wasn't talking down to us.

Some of the men on Obama's short list might not even bother to talk down to us -- many of them, with the exception of Joe Biden, haven't talked to us much in the past, so we suspect that they just might ignore us entirely in the future, while trading away our rights.

This country is in dire need of a change in course, as poll after poll indicates. But that doesn't mean Obama is a shoo-in. A bad VP choice could demonstrate that the senator and his consultants think women will vote for him no matter what. It's the same mistake John Kerry made, and you can see where that landed us. That kind of attitude has been driving women away from the Democratic party (or driving the party farther away from them).

Obama and Clinton proved that high-profile, big-party candidates can still inspire and motivate. This is no time to blow it.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz admits that "journalists have an abysmal track record" at predicting the VP selections, so don't blame a die-hard feminist for hoping that a pleasant surprise might happen in the coming weeks. Senator, are you listening?

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