Christian Science Monitor, MA
10-25-07
Clinton's gender poses challenge in Iowa
The leading Democratic presidential contender is in a tight race in Iowa, one of
only two states never to have elected a woman to the governor's office or
Congress.
By Ariel Sabar, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Ames, Iowa - When Roxanne Conlin stepped into a grain elevator during her
1982 campaign for Iowa governor, the farmers inside, in seed corn hats and
overalls, burst into laughter when she asked for their support.
"They all just guffawed until I left," recalls Ms. Conlin, a former US attorney who
narrowly lost the open race. "It was not an uncommon reaction. People would
say to me, 'What do you think you're doing? You've got four kids, go home.' "
Twenty-five years later, Iowa remains the only state besides Mississippi never to
have elected a woman to the governor's office or to Congress. A bedeviling
question is how that legacy will play for Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is seeking to
become the first woman president and is in a far tighter race for the Democratic
presidential nomination in Iowa than she is in other early-primary states.
Senator Clinton told a Des Moines Register columnist this week that she was
"shocked" to hear of Iowa's failure to elect a female governor or member of
Congress and said it posed a "special burden" for her.
"I have to maybe reassure people here maybe more than I do in New Hampshire,
which has had a woman governor," she said.
Anything short of victory in Iowa would puncture the aura of inevitability that
surrounds her nomination nationally. Some analysts saw her remarks as an effort
to lower expectations in this key early voting state. Interviews with Democratic
voters this week suggest that Clinton remains a polarizing figure in Iowa, if not
just because of her gender.
"I'm not going to vote for someone just because they have the same reproductive
system I do," says Jennifer Lunsford, a dairy farmer who chairs the Jefferson
County Democratic Party, in southeast Iowa. "I'm going to vote for someone who
has the same convictions."
Ms. Lunsford, who is backing Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, said she
was put off by what she sees as Clinton's divisive politics and weak explanation
of her 2002 vote for the Iraq war.
At the other end of the spectrum is Stephanie Calhoun, a grandmother of 23,
who says Clinton has inspired her to vote for the first time. "It's time for a woman
to take charge," Ms. Calhoun, a live-in caretaker for the elderly, said as she
waited for takeout Chinese food in downtown Des Moines Wednesday. "She's
outgoing, and she's outspoken, and it doesn't matter what kind of shoes she
wears."
Current and former female politicians in Iowa say many older residents in this
rural state hold traditional views of gender roles. But they say factors with no
bearing on Clinton's bid – bad timing, and lack of campaign funds or name
recognition – have also played a part in the fate of women candidates for
governor and Congress.
Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, a Democrat with no plans to endorse in the caucuses,
says of Clinton, "She may face what I and any other woman who has run for
political office did, and that's a small percentage of people who will make a
decision based on her gender. It is not a make or break."
Clinton's unease over Iowa surfaced publicly in May, when an internal campaign
memo calling Iowa "our consistently weakest state" and urging a pullout from the
caucuses leaked to the press. Clinton responded that she had rejected the
advice and has since ramped up campaign operations here.
She purchased local TV ads to compete with those of former Sen. John Edwards
of North Carolina and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and campaigned with her
husband, Bill Clinton, and the wives of former Gov. Tom Vilsack and Sen. Tom
Harkin of Iowa.
Bonnie Campbell, a former Iowa gubernatorial candidate who co-chairs Clinton's
Midwest campaign, says Clinton has gone to lengths to highlight her role as a
mother. In a state that prizes strong families, she says, Clinton's decision to stay
with her husband through a rocky marriage also resonates. "While her marital
status may have hurt her in urban centers, I think it helps here," said Ms.
Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general.
Clinton has pulled to the front only in recent polls of Iowa Democrats. For months
she had trailed Mr. Edwards, who placed second in Iowa in 2004 and has
campaigned in the state for years. She is ahead of her nearest rival by as much
as 20 points in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, but her lead here –
six points over Edwards in the authoritative Iowa Poll earlier this month – is
narrow.
And it remains fragile. According to the Iowa Poll, more Democratic caucusgoers
– 41 percent – have ruled her out than they have either Edwards and Senator
Obama. Edwards is still the favorite among men, and 42 percent of all
Democratic caucusgoers say they thought Clinton's gender would hurt her
chances on election day.
Even so, Dianne Bystrom, director of Iowa State University's Catt Center for
Women and Politics, said that in Iowa's unusual system of selecting party
nominees, Clinton's gender may help in at least one way: The Democrats who
attend caucuses are disproportionately female, many of them baby boomers like
her.
Invited to talk about women and leadership at the Catt Center on campus here
Wednesday, Clinton chronicled the long strides since the suffrage movement and
prodded the hundreds of women – and some men – in the audience to vote.
"I relish the opportunity to be part of making history with all of you," she said.
Getting up to leave afterward, Janet Fitzpatrick, a graduate student in women's
studies, said she had yet to be persuaded. She said she wanted a Democrat in
the White House more than she did a woman and fretted over Clinton's prospects
in the general election. "Yes, more women vote now," said Ms. Fitzpatrick, of the
nearby town of Nevada, who is torn between Clinton and Edwards. "But are
women comfortable voting for another woman? I think a lot of them are just not
there yet."