Columnist Melissa Schorr: Time for a woman at the helm

Melissa Schorr

Monday, March 15, 1999 | 9:58 a.m.

If Elizabeth Dole doesn't get to it already and officially declare her presidential candidacy, I may just have to declare my own.

I'm gunning for a female president in my lifetime, and frankly, I don't care if we have to elect Leona Helmsley or Xena the Warrior Princess to get the job done. I'll do it myself, if I have to.

I know: Conventional wisdom dictates that you say you want such a candidate not solely "because" she is a woman, but because she is "a highly qualified candidate who represents a majority of the population."

Hogwash. Personally, all I require is a warm body with ovaries.

To me, the precedent seems almost as important as the politics.

That's fortunate, because right now, Liddy (Call-Me-Elizabeth-Dammit!) Dole may be our most "viable" female White House contender, and her platform is standard Republican fare.

Dole, 62, finally stopped keeping mum like Mona Lisa on Wednesday and officially announced the formation of an "exploratory committee." The next day, she spoke to a crowd assembled at the Thomas & Mack Center for "Peter Lowe's Success" seminar. I hotfooted it down there, hoping for a glimpse of history in the making.

True, she's as tightly wound, helmet-haired and plasticine as they say. Her choker pearls might be cutting off circulation to her head, and she drawled the phrase "Bob and I" one too many times.

Dole called for a return to "decency and self-discipline," which sounds well and good, but may have a chilling subtext. "What happened to honor, duty and personal responsibility?" the pro-lifer admonished. "We've ended up with a pornographic culture and a society that no longer blushes."

Still, the simple fact that she was a presidential up-and-comer and wearing a fuchsia skirt gave me a clandestine thrill, I must admit.

Naturally, she didn't fail to get in a subtle dig at Clinton by touting the "character" code word.

The ultimate irony here is that after years of gender working against women in politics, it may finally work to a woman's advantage. Whether or not it's true, Americans say they suspect a female president would be more moral.

In other words, after a skirt-chaser, a skirt-wearer doesn't seem quite so bad.

"What once may have held her back now represents the shiny possibility of change," a feature in this month's Harper's Bazaar concludes.

Sure, reluctance to see a woman as head of the (White) House persists: One poll found that 20 percent of Americans were not interested in seeing a woman on the ballot. And a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll found that 43 percent of us feel the U.S. is not ready to elect a woman president.

Others are working furiously to change that. A Wisconsin attorney has formed an action group (madam-president.com) dedicated to the cause, but their strategy includes convincing Oprah to do a special, a game plan that seems a bit misguided.

Another more prominent group, the nonpartisan White House Project, has put together a fantasy slate of 20 prominent women they've deemed up for the job, including Dole, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Claudia Kennedy, the Army's first female three-star general.

And if none of them makes it there by 2008, remember: There's always yours truly.