Editorial: Political prime time

Saturday, Oct. 15, 2005 | 10:03 a.m.

Through ABC's new drama, "Commander in Chief," millions of viewers each Tuesday night are pondering the image of a woman sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office, rather than dusting it. It's about time we seriously considered the prospect of a woman president, even if it is just on television.

For now, election of a female U.S. president remains prime-time fiction. It's not real. It's simply fun to watch.

But pop culture has a way of seeping into our values. And with discussions of a possible 2008 presidential battle between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice already circulating, what's deemed OK on television will eventually become accepted. It has happened before.

Interracial relationships were still controversial when raised in an "All in the Family" episode in which Lionel, the black son of a neighbor, dated a white girl. But in the series' spinoff "The Jeffersons" a few years later, an interracial married couple were recurring characters. The racial difference was no longer the plot twist.

Likewise, "Commander in Chief" has "the potential to turn the fiction of a woman president into reality by shaping ideas about women as leaders," says The White House Project, a nonprofit group that encourages women to run for public office, and especially the U.S. presidency.

But homegrown hurdles remain, if the recent kerfuffle between outgoing Nevada first lady Dema Guinn and U.S. congressional candidate Dawn Gibbons is any indication. The question of a woman's proper place in politics still rears its ugly little head occasionally, even among women.

Guinn in September took issue with Gibbons' plans to run for the U.S. House seat her husband, Republican Jim Gibbons, is vacating. He is running for Nevada governor -- a position Guinn's husband, Kenny Guinn, is leaving. Dawn Gibbons, Dema Guinn said, could not be a proper first lady for Nevada if she pursued her own career goals.

Here is one powerful woman attacking an equally powerful woman for choosing her career goals independently of her husband's.

These women weren't even allowed to fight independently. Rather than focusing on the gender bias being perpetuated by women who should know better, mainstream discussion quickly pegged the snapping between Guinn and Gibbons to an old political rivalry between their husbands.

According to Newhouse News Service, a recent poll conducted by CNN-USA Today-Gallup shows 87 percent of those surveyed believe the United States will have a female president within 25 years. With both Democrats and Republicans seriously considering female candidates in 2008, it could happen sooner rather than later.

First, however, we must quell the petty bickering over such issues as whether a woman can adequately serve in Congress while folks back home expect her to serve tea. Such quarrels are so last season.