In other places, women run at the top

MELONE E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published September 19, 2002

Janet Reno came so achingly close. At the end, just 4,800 votes stood between her and the Democratic nomination for governor.

If she had beaten Bill McBride, she would have scored a first.

Neither party has had a woman nominee for governor.

And no woman has ever gotten as far along in the process as Reno did.

Yet the picture is pitiful.

We are one of the biggest states, and among the most backward.

Eight women, all Democrats, are running for governor in states from Arkansas to Alaska, Maryland to Minnesota.

Twenty-two other women -- 10 Democrats, 11 Republicans and one independent -- are running for lieutenant governor in other states. In Pennsylvania, for instance, both parties' tickets include a woman as lieutenant governor.

These numbers come from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where a spokesman, Gilda Morales, said she'd hoped Bill McBride would have broken with tradition and picked a woman.

Would that former education commissioner Betty Castor had been interested.

That would have been some ticket.

Or Carol Browner, the head of EPA for Bill Clinton.

That too would have been awesome.

McBride was looking for somebody with experience in Tallahassee, with the Legislature, which he lacked. He also needed somebody who could do well in South Florida.

So he chose somebody nobody outside of politics had heard of, legislator Tom Rossin from Royal Palm Beach.

Rossin has eight years in the Legislature under his belt.

Good for him.

He's a safe and comfortable choice.

Was there really no woman out there comparable to Rossin?

Or is my suspicion accurate that for a woman to be considered, her credentials have to double and triple those of the nearest man?

Take Castor. She was education commissioner, one of the few women ever to hold statewide office. She was president of a university.

Or Browner, former head of the EPA. Do you have to have had a presidential post to be considered?

Same goes for Reno. Would anybody in the Florida Democratic Party have looked twice at her if she hadn't been U.S. attorney general first?

To give you an idea of just how grim Florida is for women, it is one of the few states without a single woman running for statewide office this year. Only five women in the state's history have held statewide office.

Paula Xanthopoulou, president of the National Women's Political Caucus in Florida and a Reno supporter, blames Reno's defeat on the usual suspects, the good old boys who feared her independence. "They're really looking for people like themselves to win," Xanthopoulou said -- and Bill McBride came a whole lot closer in that regard.

Susan MacManus, USF's resident political expert, said Florida's failure to pick women is puzzling because women outnumber men among the voters and often among political volunteers.

The power is there. We just haven't harnessed it and kicked down the barriers. Whatever are we waiting for?

-- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright