Another Glass Ceiling Down

Denmark looks set to end 10 years of right wing rule and get it's first female Prime Minister in elections tipped for this week...

Well, good for Denmark! The question I always ask when I read stories like this is when's America going to elect a woman? (And Iowa as well- my home state being one of 2, count 'em 2 states left that has yet to elect a woman governor or send a woman to Congress. Company we keep with Mississippi, I think.)

The answer to that question is considerably more complicated, however. The power of incumbency usually means that whomever is in the White House has a good solid lock on the place barring total incompetence or economic mismanagement- so really, you're looking at 8 years between chances most of the time. But Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin represented two very different breakthroughs for women in 2008- Hillary because she was the first viable female candidate and Palin because she's championed a whole movement of Conservative women that will be sending ripples through the Republican Party for much of the next decade at least.

Will we see it? Absolutely- maybe sooner than we think and I'm going to risk the wrath of many people by predicting that the first woman President is going to be a Republican. But it won't be Bachmann and I'm like 75% it won't be Palin either, so no worries this time around.

Iowa is a bit trickier to predict. My home state has taken the very farmer-like attitude of 'if it ain't broke, don't replace it' to it's elected officials (witness the mould covered pair of politicos we have occupying our Senate seats) and if there is turnover in our Congressional delegation, it usually comes after a census shifts boundaries. That's what we're facing in '12 and there is some potential for change out there. Christie Vilsack is running against Steve King in the new 4th District up in NW Iowa and although Miller-Meeks took a job in Branstad's new administration in Des Moines, I wouldn't rule out another whack at the 2nd District again either. But Mrs. Vilsack is going to have her work cut out for her, that's for sure- NW Iowa is about as red as you can get (I remember seeing some vote totals in some counties that had Steve King picked up 80-85% of the vote- granted there wasn't a lot of population in some of these very rural counties, but still, 80%? That's ridiculous.)

One of these days, Iowa's going to find a strong, capable woman and put her in charge of something but the prospects aren't high anytime soon, I'm afraid.