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"Now people have gotten more comfortable with women in leading roles, and women have gotten better at |
 "I Miss Wonder Woman" Forget the Powerpuff Girls and the goofy pink Power Ranger. We need a modern-day superhero!    |
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The August.September issue of PINK featured nine women we think are ready to run for President of the United States of America. Here are three more amazing women who we think have a shot: Nancy Pelosi (D) Why her? As the highest-ranking Democrat in the House and by far the highest-ranking woman in Congress, Pelosi, 66, has unprecedented power. She is the master of the behind-the-scenes deal and of brokering legislation with Republicans. She, too, is from populous California. She wields power expertly, is often on television and has high name recognition – unlike other House members. Accomplishments: Member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee; former member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; former Democratic Party chair for Northern California Success secret: "I view my role in politics as an extension of my most rewarding and challenging roles in life – as a parent and grandparent." Handicap: Her San Francisco district is among the most liberal in the country, and opponents would never let her forget it. Ready to run? "For now I will be content to be speaker of the House." Olympia Snowe (R) U.S. senator, Maine – since 1995 Why her? A self-described moderate (socially liberal but conservative on fiscal and defense issues), Snowe, 59, was the fourth woman to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee; was the first to chair its Seapower Subcommittee, which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps; and is the first Republican woman to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee. In her first Senate race, she carried every county in her state. She has never lost an election. Accomplishments: Former member, Maine House of Representatives (elected to succeed her husband when he died in an automobile accident); former Maine senator; member, U.S. House, 1979-95; chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and sits on the prestigious Finance Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence Success secret: Firmly a centrist. "Maybe we can help to lessen the polarization, the partisanship. The center is dwindling, and I think we [shouldn't] drive ideological wedges, but rather [see] how we can fashion the very best policy in the interests of the country," she says in the Almanac of American Politics (National Journal Group, 2005). Handicap: She is a relative unknown from a small state with little exposure. She's also much too moderate to get the Republican nomination.
Jeanne Shaheen (D) Former three-term governor of New Hampshire Why her? Shaheen, 59, is grounded in the politics of arguably the most important state in the nation for potential presidential candidates – the first primary state. She served three terms in the state senate before earning three terms as governor. She implemented education reforms such as expanded kindergarten, and she worked out a comprehensive energy program in a state where partisan politics is taught at the dinner table. She lost a race for the U.S. senate in 2002. Accomplishments: Local campaign manager for President Jimmy Carter; declared her candidacy for governor in 1996 and won the election, despite the fact that New Hampshire had never had a female governor and had not elected a Democrat to that post since 1980; currently heads the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics Success secret: "Luck," she jokes. But seriously, "My successes have very much been built on both the shoulders of those around me and those who came before me." Handicap: Out of politics for three years, she isn't laying much groundwork. |
