George W. Bush may not be my generation’s greatest president. He’s inarticulate, quick to judge and doesn’t identify with today’s youth. In a nutshell, he’s a man’s man.
A lot of my peers hate him and his misogynistic policies. Luckily, in exactly 742 days, Bush could be replaced in our democracy with someone more effective — a woman.
With only two years to go, the Democratic and Republican parties need to start campaigning viable female candidates now for the top job. After all, it’s going to take two years worth of convincing the millions of conservatives who uphold our great patriarchy that a woman can handle the job — and might, in fact, fare better than the centuries of men in the past.

The United States needs a woman president in 2004 because we have qualified candidates. In an era of glass ceilings, the symbolic meaning of a female chief executive would give hope to the “better half” of Americans struggling for equal rights. And it would prove to the international community that we mean it when we claim to value women as leaders — unlike our misogynistic counterparts in big, bad countries like Afghanistan.
If Evita Perón, Helen Clark or Megawati Sukarnoputri can run a country, who’s to say the same can’t happen in the most powerful nation in the world? First we need to give a viable woman nominee a fair chance to compete.
So, which female politician is experienced, marketable and could garner enough financial support to become chief executive in 2004?
Elizabeth Dole briefly campaigned in the 2000 election and would make an ideal presidential candidate in 2004 with her extensive background both in Washington politics and as president of the American Red Cross. But the problem with Liddy is that her conservative constituents are unlikely to vote a woman — any woman — into office. Republican women have a hard enough time filling seats in the Senate, let alone the Oval Office; of the 49 Republican spots available, only 3 females currently fill Senate seats.
Our first American female president will have to be a Democrat, simply because Democrats will vote for a qualified woman without getting muddled up in ideals of morality, family values or prescribed gender roles.
Hillary Clinton is the model candidate because of her experience in Arkansas politics, as First Lady and now as a New York senator. But according to a Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll released last week, 69 percent of Americans say Clinton should never run for president. Decline in Clinton’s support has more than doubled since the poll’s last finding in March 2001, when 30 percent said she should run.
If Americans won’t support Clinton, another Democratic party candidate could be Dianne Feinstein. The senator’s track record serving the 35 million constituents in California has been mostly good, although she has made a few enemies within her own party for not voting along the party line. Most recently, Feinstein joined the ranks of Clinton to support the president on force in Iraq when both women originally opposed action. Despite Feinstein’s frequent changes of heart, she has the potential to become a great national leader.
Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and Marcy Kaptur are other names that come to mind when compiling a list of potential candidates. And some may argue Madonna would make the ultimate president — but I have a feeling she may want Tony Blair’s job instead.
A new millennium should bring modern changes in America’s political system. We have female candidates that could do the same job as 43 men have done in the past. Voters just have to find the balls to elect them.

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