Is the U.S. Finally Ready for Its First Madame President?
Well, it finally happened. President Joe Biden withdrew last Sunday from the race for reelection. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote in a letter he posted to social media Sunday afternoon. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down.”
In a separate social media post on Sunday, Biden endorsed his vice president, Kamala D. Harris, to replace him as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden said in a post shared on X. “Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
But is the country finally ready to get behind a female candidate? More to the point, is it ready to have its first Madame President?
America and its murky history with women in politics
For eight years, the American political scene has been a circus show—at least a more overt one than in recent decades. From megalomaniacal candidates and presidents to the establishment of a gerontocracy, the country has gradually lost faith in representative democracy.
Unfortunately, this is nothing new. In fact, since 1872, women have been saying out loud they have the strength and tenacity to sit in the Oval Office.
Claflin Woodhull and Ann Bennet Lockwood ran for President of the United States in the late 19th century for the Equal Rights Party. Chase Smith tried again in 1964. Anita Chisholm and Takemoto Mink were the first women candidates of color to try in 1972. Ilen McCormack ran in 1976 and 1980 with an anti-abortion campaign and was the first woman to qualify for federal campaign matching funds and to obtain Secret Service protection.
More recently, Carol Moseley Braun, Cynthia McKinney, Michelle Bachmann, Jill Stein, Carly Fiorina, and Tulsi Gabbard threw their hats into the ring. However, the women who went on to gain national recognition and actually be considered potential candidates were Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Hillary Clinton. The latter has been the only one to win the popular vote.
What changes now?
Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race is almost unprecedented. Although Presidents Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson also made the decision in 1952 and 1968, the reason was always a low approval rating, never a cognitive and health decline as we have seen in the Biden case. Much less an internal lobbying campaign as aggressive as the one launched by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to convince the president to withdraw.
Still, nothing guarantees that Kamala Harris will become the first woman president of the United States.
Yes, the vice president would indeed be the first black and Asian American woman to reach the White House, which, in theory, would mobilize critical blocs such as African American voters and women. But Harris faces a candidate transformed into a demi-God by his supporters after an assassination attempt, a deeply divided country, and a public opinion that does little to favor the Democratic Party.
A race for president against the clock
Despite harsh criticism of Biden for his cognitive status and his support for genocide in Gaza, the president leaves office with notable accomplishments. Biden pushed through bills on infrastructure, climate change, healthcare, gun control, and the semiconductor industry. He pulled the U.S. out of Afghanistan, rebuilt alliances broken by Trump, and led a coalition to stop Moscow on its tracks in Ukraine.
But Biden leaves office with historically low approval ratings, a weakened Democratic Party, and, most importantly, amid a political campaign that didn’t do, well, any campaigning.
Kamala Harris will now be the cliché of the woman coming in to clean up the mess just weeks before the Democratic Convention. The vice president must convince the undecided and explain why she is the best choice to lead the country against a solid Republican bloc with a candidate who does not need to convince anyone anymore.
Will she be able to pull it off?
