August 30, 2008 09:05 PM UTC

If Senator McCain wins, Sarah Palin will be the first woman president

• 2 Comments
• by: colorado76

and the irony of that should be lost on no one.  Of course there can be no guarantees, but the odds are good that it will come to pass.  Senator McCain will cross over the life expectancy for the average American man during his first term.  Not wanting to get into the details of life handicapping, there is a chance that she will succeed him.  That said, even if she doesn’t, the odds of her assuming the job only get better with time.

The next step would be the 2012 election.  While election results can’t be foretold four months in advance, much less four years, all other things being equal, whoever is elected in November will likely have the wind at their back for re-election.  Because of the cyclical nature of the economy, it will probably be on the upswing, if not in a fairly good place, by 2012, regardless of who is elected.  Likewise, regardless of who is elected, it becomes more clear each day that most American troops will be out of Iraq by 2012.  Neither senator Obama nor senator McCain will have too much right to the credit for these events, but they will take it, and if history is a guide, the American people will give it to them.

This leaves two possibilities, that senator McCain will run for re-election, or he won’t.  If he does, the odds of him stepping down in his second term, in which he will reach the age of 80, are even higher.  If he doesn’t, governor Palin will have a likely insurmountable advantage in getting the Republican nomination.  Say what you will about her experience now, by the time she’s been vice president for four years, she wins that argument against anyone.

The point is, being the vice president to the oldest president in history and taking office amongst some of the lowest voter satisfaction in history makes her one of the most likely vice presidents in history to ascend to the highest office in the land.

The irony of this is that her ascension, if it occurs, will be the culmination of a centuries-old struggle by people other than her.  We’ve all heard a lot about governor Palin in the past 24 hours, but none of it has suggested that she has made equality for women one of the causes of her life.  In her run for governor of Alaska, it was not one of the 21 issues she campaigned on.  The closest she came was a short statement on “social issues,” which read “I am pro-life and I believe that marriage should only be between and man and a woman. I am opposed to any expansion of gambling in Alaska.”  Equality for women didn’t even get a sentence in this paragraph.  This isn’t to say that she opposes equality for women, odds are she doesn’t seeing as she is a living example of it in many ways, its just to say it doesn’t appear to be something she’s worked for.

Perhaps that’s not the relevant point, but its at least interesting when juxtaposed with other woman candidates.  The obvious example is senator Hillary Clinton, who has spent decades fighting to redefine the role of first lady as someone who should be seriously involved in governing and spending her time in the senate and her presidential campaign showing once and for all that a woman can hold her own at every level of public leadership.  She’s fought, she’s bled, and she’s healed, only to be bloodied again.  She climbed the ladder and pounded on the glass ceiling so hard it came within inches of breaking, only to fall just short.  She built up an immense stockpile of political capital that everyone seems to agree she intended to save up for the day when she could come back and try again.

Little did she know that while senator Obama was busy accepting the party’s nomination, senator McCain and governor Palin were over at the bank, attempting to withdraw that capital as fast as they could.  Governor Palin admitted this by expressly stating that hers would be a continuation of Hillary’s efforts.  The movement for women’s rights has been running a marathon for years that at this point culiminated with senator Clinton collapsing at mile 26.  Now governor Palin, who doesn’t seem to have logged any miles thus far, is poised to pick up the baton, walk the last .2, and receive the medal.

Perhaps that doesn’t matter.  Perhaps its the goal that’s important and how it is reached is secondary.  But it would be the height of irony if this glass ceiling was finally broken by someone who did little more than give it a final tap.