Elizabeth Warren recently abandoned her bid for the Democratic nomination for president and in a news conference blamed her failure on sexism. Although I would be the first to tell you there is sexism, not only in politics but everyday life as well, the fact remains that her demise was perpetuated by women as well as men. Half of our population are women and in the Democratic party it is far more than half. These women voted in greater numbers for her male opponents then for her.
Was there a woman running who had the best chance of unseating the president? I don’t think so but I do believe there is one out there. I think the Democratic party right now is more intent on winning than making the glass ceiling fall down. Usually when you want to win bad enough you have to put your personal feelings aside and take one for the team, hoping the team in turn will help change the way we do business in this country.
In 2016 the woman who ran for president almost made it. In fact, she had the popular vote. But her checkered past always came back to haunt her. Both parties need to search for women who don’t have those pasts and groom them for the top job. There were Democratic candidates who were pretty squeaky clean but no one knew about them because they served in the fringes of politics where name recognition is not easily obtained.
To a point, politics needs to be more about what you have to offer the country and less about what you may or may not have done in your life before politics. But right now, none of them know how to sell themselves. Only belittle their opponent.
Mike Holst
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Crosslake
