After a dismal showing on Super Tuesday earlier this week, Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the last female candidates, officially ended her bid to become the Democrat nominee for president. It was a somewhat surprising end to what had once been a popular candidacy. Feminists, progressives and abortion activists are mourning the loss, blame sexism and lament that there will never be a female candidate for president. They’re wrong.
In a press conference outside her home after withdrawing from the race, Warren said, “Gender in this race? That is the trap question. If you say, ‘Yeah there was sexism,’ everyone says ‘Whiner!’ If you say no, about a bazillion women say, ‘What planet do you live on?’”
Other prominent progressives seemed to agree.
Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, tweeted, “Elizabeth Warren ran a dynamic, hopeful campaign centered around smart policy solutions to make this country work for everyone. I know this is just the beginning for her, her team, and the millions of women and girls she inspired with her run. We started this journey with 5 women candidates and now are down to 1. I know many women may feel discouraged in this moment, but never doubt that whatever happens next, there are so many places to look for hope. Let’s start with each other.”
Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a MSNBC contributor and pro-abortion activist, tweeted, “I really hope that we’ll see gender no longer be a punishment for qualified, intelligent women with strong values who might dare want to lead. It happened a lot this cycle. A hurdle I believe we can overcome: but we need men to say the quiet part out loud and do their part, too.”
Warren continued her pity party with an appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC where the host portrayed the future of a female president as far out of reach. “You leaving the race feels different. If Hillary Clinton can’t win when she gets the nomination and you can’t get the nomination and neither can Kamala Harris, and neither can Amy Klobuchar, and neither can Kirsten Gillibrand. I mean, I think part of what’s going on today is women around the country are like, ‘OK, honestly! If it’s not going to be any of them, let’s get real Is it just that it can’t be any woman ever?’ Are we just going to run, you know, white men in their late 70s against each other, both parties and that’s all we can agree to do?”
Maddow went on to say, “I think there’s a feeling that your campaign ending is very specific to you and it also feels a little bit like a death knell in terms of the prospects of having a woman president in our lifetimes.”
This idea that sexism is the reason Elizabeth Warren didn’t get the nomination and Hillary Clinton didn’t become president is a bit ridiculous. Honestly, the women just were not good candidates.
Elizabeth Warren was known for her radical rhetoric, inconsistent answers to certain policy questions and her disastrous attempts to prove her supposed Native American heritage. Hillary Clinton had decades of baggage and bad decisions as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State, like her use of an unsecured personal email server while serving as the nation’s top diplomat and failure to properly respond to the Benghazi situation, which made her candidacy difficult if not impossible.
There’s also this idea on the Left that a person’s merits for a position reside with their gender. As a woman, I’m even told that it is my obligation to support female candidates and abortion rights to show solidarity, but that isn’t how anyone should vote. It should be about the qualifications of the candidate and their ability to lead the country that must define voting decisions, not their sex.
Personally, I strongly believe that in my lifetime there will be a female President of the United States. Nikki Haley would be a tremendous presidential candidate. I would vote for either of them because of their qualifications, not because of some superficial qualification like sex. To elect them for any other reason is both a disservice to my gender and the country.
Photo by Gage Skidmore
