Until recently, an unspoken subtext in our current presidential campaign is whether America is ready to elect the first woman to be president. A similar issue confronted the country in 1960 when the question was whether America was ready to elect its first Catholic president.
From the moment President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, gender has been the elephant in the room.
Former President Donald Trump, of course, has not so subtly weaponized gender to question whether Harris has the fortitude to be an effective president. Trump quoted one of his favorite authoritarians, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban saying that the world needs “Trump back in the presidency” because other nations, including China, North Korea, and Russia, had been “intimidated” by Trump when he was president, the absurd implication being that a woman cannot be strong and intimidating.
Not until the last few weeks did the Harris campaign through its surrogate, former President Barack Obama, forcefully confront the gender issue calling out “some men who seem to think Trump’s behavior of bullying and putting people down is a sign of strength.” Obama emphasized that “real strength” is “taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient,” “helping people who need it and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for themselves.”
Obama argued that Harris’ gender is irrelevant to her ability to be a strong and effective president.
In the 1960 presidential election, another deeply embedded prejudice in the American psyche had to be exorcised before Sen. John F. Kennedy could be elected president. The ostensible reason was that his religion would make him answerable to the Vatican and not the American people.
From its inception, the Kennedy campaign was haunted by the ghost of former New York Gov. Al Smith, the 1928 presidential Democratic nominee who lost the presidency to Herbert Hoover. Historians attribute Smith’s loss to his Catholic faith. It took more than 30 years for another Catholic, Kennedy, to become a serious candidate for the presidency.
By virtue of Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign, the Democrats nominated a totally qualified presidential candidate who just happens to be a woman. However, prior to Harris securing the delegate votes to become the nominee, there was grumbling in Democratic circles whether it was wise to nominate a woman when only eight years earlier Hillary Clinton, this generation’s Al Smith, had lost her presidential bid.
The big difference of course between the religious, and gender issues is the undeniable political clout possessed by women, who constitute about 53% of the American electorate. In 1960, Catholics were approximately 20% of the electorate. Early voting that shows substantially more women than men have thus far voted may reflect women flexing their political power in response to the abortion issue and their revulsion to Trump’s macho man pitch.
In 1960, only a few states had presidential primaries, and the party bosses chose the nominee. Kennedy won several of those primaries, most notably in Protestant West Virginia, to convince the party establishment of his electability. Kennedy also actively courted Protestant ministers to dispel any concerns they might have had about the impact of his religion.
Harris has chosen not to embrace the historic nature of her candidacy as potentially the first female president. Rather, she has opted to show her strength of leadership through her long career in public service, her debate performance, her strong and assertive interview on Fox News, and her forceful closing statement on the Ellipse in front of the White House. She has made the strategic decision to deputize Obama, Tim Walz and non-politicians such as Magic Johnson to take the gender issue head on and encourage men to vote for a woman president.
Finally, if the polls are correct, this election, like the 1960 election, promises to be another cliffhanger. Based on polling data and Obama’s efforts to bring men back into the Democratic fold, gender is obviously one explanation as to why the race at this stage appears to be so close.
In 1960, Kennedy won the popular vote with 49.7% to Richard Nixon’s 49.55%. The Democratic Party mantra after Kennedy’s close win was that if one vote changed from Kennedy to Nixon in every precinct in the United States, Nixon would have won. This obsession with fighting for every vote is precisely why Harris in the final weeks of the campaign has upped her game in aggressively targeting all voters, both women and men.
Akerman, a former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, is a New York attorney who has long been active in politics.
