AHC: More Woman US Presidential Candidates

Texas has had at least three possible candidates: Gov. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson in the 1920s-30s ; U.S. Rep Barbara Jordan (considered for Jimmy Carter's VP in 1976) ; and Gov. Ann Richards in the 1990s.
 
No need to kill off Ike - running a woman against philanderer JFK may well give her the edge to win in 1960.

Maybe. But if Ike dies in '55, Smith would most likely win the 1956 election handily (sympathy vote, economy doing well) and she'd be in a very good position to win the 1960 election.
 
Can you please tell me how much experience Margaret Chase Smith had in 1952?

to be the person to be selected as Eisenhower's VP

She was a US Senator since 1949, a US Representative from 1940-1949, member of the House Naval Affairs Committee and later the House Armed Services Committee, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve in 1950.
 
Sadly, the main problem is the bigotry of the American public at the time:
woman.JPG


At that time, in 1937, there was considerable reluctance on the part of the American population to vote for either a Jew, a woman, or a Catholic:

46% said they would vote for a Jew for president
60% said they would vote for a Catholic for president
33% said they would vote for a woman for president

The acceptance of a Catholic for president took its biggest leap forward with the election of JFK, jumping from 71% in 1960 to 82% in 1961

Lets add that theoretical 11-point bump as happened with Kennedy, and you would still have only ~60% of the public willing to vote for a woman, and this would probably be roughly evenly distributed across party lines. Eisenhower would be in serious danger of losing the election.
 
(Somehow) Get Walter Mondale to win in '84. Geraldine Ferraro runs for POTUS in 1992.

The problem is that if Mondale had a good chance of winning in 1984, he would probably not have selected Ferraro as his running mate. He felt he had to do something "historic" to counteract Reagan's lead in the polls. (In the same way, McCain would probably not have picked Palin if he had been leading Obama in the polls--he would have gone with someone more conventional.)
 
I always liked giving Clare Boothe Luce the job, but it's not easy.

Say JFK dies in WWII.

Henry Cabot Lodge is reelected to the Senate in 1952.

Clare Boothe Luce is made Ambassador to the United Nations under Eisenhower.

Nixon picks Luce to be his running mate and then beats LBJ in the General Election.

Nixon is assassinated late in his first term.

Clare Boothe Luce succeeds him and is reelected in 1964, but stands down in 1968. (A combination of unpopular wars and her age.)
 
She was a US Senator since 1949, a US Representative from 1940-1949, member of the House Naval Affairs Committee and later the House Armed Services Committee, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve in 1950.
So, good credentials for Margaret Chase Smith in a conventional sense. In addition, being born on Dec. 14, 1897, she was old enough in '52 to be either vice-president or president. Nixon arguably was not. He was a young man in a hurry. Sure, legally he was old enough. He was at least thirty-five years of age. But in real terms of enough experience, I tend to think not.

All the same, the above graph from Magnum is very significant.

And add to this, the common (?) view among political scientists that picking a vice-president is not about picking a positive. It's about picking the smallest negative.
 
Sadly, the main problem is the bigotry of the American public at the time:
From the graph, the biggest positive change seems to be from '69 to '74. So, chalk up a success to the women's movement. And steady progress since then.

1) If you have it handy, I'd be interested in a link or reference so I could use it myself in Internet discussions.

2) and how do you technically include a graph?
 
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1) If you have it handy, I'd be interested in a link or reference so I could use it myself in Internet discussions.

2) and how do you technically include a graph?
1. it was from gallup.com; not exactly this http://www.gallup.com/poll/8611/little-prejudice-against-woman-jewish-black-catholic-presidenti.aspx or this http://www.gallup.com/poll/8656/generational-differences-support-woman-president.aspx (I can't fin the original), but these also say basically the same thing, apparently in greater detail

2. I just made screenshot and saved it as a picture
 
Thank you.

Part of the early '70s upswing might have been from including newly enfrancised 18-year-olds? ?

Now, these surveys are asking about President. And people tend to discount the Vice President in general. I do agree it would have been quite a risk for Eisenhower.
 
So, good credentials for Margaret Chase Smith in a conventional sense. In addition, being born on Dec. 14, 1897, she was old enough in '52 to be either vice-president or president. Nixon arguably was not. He was a young man in a hurry. Sure, legally he was old enough. He was at least thirty-five years of age. But in real terms of enough experience, I tend to think not.

All the same, the above graph from Magnum is very significant.

And add to this, the common (?) view among political scientists that picking a vice-president is not about picking a positive. It's about picking the smallest negative.

Smith would be a good choice, actually. She was a big supporter of the US Navy (even referred to as the Mother of WAVES)*, a strong anti-Communist like Nixon but not afraid to stand up to Joseph McCarthy. If you read her Declaration of Conscience, you get goosebumps; and someone contemporary to her (I think it was Bernard Baruch) said that if a man gave that speech, he'd be president.

*WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; it was the Women's branch of the US Naval Reserve. MCS was instrumental in introducing and pushing legislation for it.
 
And I think Senator Smith also worked with partial success so that women veterans received a fair shake regarding GI Bill benefits.

But all the same, per the above graph her negatives were off the chart. Simply because she was a woman.

Shouldn't be this way. But apparently in 1952 it was.
 
And I think Senator Smith also worked with partial success so that women veterans received a fair shake regarding GI Bill benefits.

But all the same, per the above graph her negatives were off the chart. Simply because she was a woman.

Shouldn't be this way. But apparently in 1952 it was.

I believe she did too, but I'll have to double check.

Her negatives were immense, but if we look at 1952 we see maybe 50-51% of people support a female president. If they ran her as a strong anti-Communist who had a definite record of supporting the Armed Forces, and someone unafraid to speak their mind for what they know is right, she might have done really well
 
but even if she runs a Reagan '84 near-sweep of 60% among the people who would even consider a woman president,

nowhere near good enough overall.

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Could she have been the V.P. candidate and people liked Eisenhower good enough? Perhaps but a risk.
 
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/6/1055

From 1880 to 1900, the number of female physicians doubled (to 5.6%), and in some cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, nearly 1 in 5 physicians was female.
It was the damn Flexner Report in 1910 which furthered the trend to "professionalize" medicine in too narrow a way and actually started going the other way and reduced the number of physicians who were women.

If instead, the number of women who are doctors keeps increasing, especially during the Age of Antibiotics during and after WWII, then yes, people might feel comfortable seeing women in all kinds of occupations.
 
Bush Sr. gets re-elected in '92 and the Democrats nominate Ann Richards to go up against Quayle (or whoever the Republicans pick) in '96.

Could that work?
 
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