By William Lewis
Hillary Clinton may well be the nominee of the Democratic Party for the U.S. presidency if she can weather the controversy involving the e-mails she sent out when she was secretary of state.
However, she will not be the first woman candidate who was nominated from the floor of a major party convention. That honor goes to former U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine at the Republican National Convention in 1964, which was held in San Francisco. While being nominated she had several speeches given for her. Smith also had a group of supporters demonstrating on her behalf.
1964 was also the year for U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona. He would be the nominee of the GOP party and Smith would drop her candidacy. Smith’s reason for doing these things was that she wanted to be the first woman candidate for president nominated at a major party convention. Goldwater would go into the campaign against President Lyndon Johnson in the fall and lose badly.
As for the present, there was some talk of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts running against Clinton in the Democratic primaries. That possibility now seems remote.
When we look at the recent past, we have had two women Democratic vice presidential candidates. In 1984 former Vice President Walter Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of Queens as his vice presidential running mate. Their ticket ran unsuccessfully that year against President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush Sr.
More recently in 2008, U.S. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, chose Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, against Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. In this case Obama and Biden won by a decisive margin.
More women candidates are running for public office including U.S. Senate, governorships and mayors. It seems to be only a question of time before a woman can gain the U.S. presidency. For the time being, it will be interesting to see how the 2016 presidential race turns out.
Great Britain and Israel have both had women prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Golda Meir in Israel. Germany today has a woman chancellor, Angela Merkel.
In the race for the Republican presidential nomination are U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Wis. Gov. Scott Walker. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is another likely contender. But there seem to be a half dozen or more possible Republicans showing an interest in entering the primaries. It will be a long hard fight in the Republican Party as to who their presidential candidate will be. The final decision may be made at the convention itself.
A few weeks ago Clinton was favored to be the Democratic candidate for president in 2016, but the situation has changed.
In Queens County, former Congressman Robert Turner has become the new Republican County chairman. He intends to unite the Queens Republican Party and rebuild it for the future.
