Because we support female candidates for office just because they are women, no matter how stone-cold bat shit faux-folksy or parsel-tongued, whose politics and very presence embody the promise of equal opportunity, civil rights, diversity, and compassion, it's tempting -- if not encouraging -- to look ahead to 2012 (assuming that we are not, by then, swimming with the polar bears). One blogger (handle: "betterdonkeys") at MyDD has done just that, offering this speculative list of nine possible (remotely and otherwise) female candidates for president, four years hence. (This is not about replacing -- kinehora, ptui ptui ptui -- Obama, by the way. Just a pretty glimpse of what the field could look like.)
On MyDD's roster's top tier:
-- Kathleen Sebelius, whose term as Kansas governor is up in 2010, at which time she could have a shot at Sam Brownback's Senate seat -- and at being Kansas' first Democratic senator since the publication of "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939).
-- Janet Napolitano, whose term as governor of Arizona ends in 2010. Did somebody say Arizona? You betcha. MyDD favors a "clash of the titans challenge to McCain for his Senate seat; if she could defeat him, her star would certainly rise to the top of 2016 contenders."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton, ladies and gentlemen.
Also: Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar, plus a handful of other fun-to-think-about long shots (including Darcy Burner).
Not that all of these women would necessarily run all at once. But! "Our bench is deep, and we will have a group of competent and accomplished female politicians as options," the post continues, also noting: "We ... should recognize that gender equality in politics is not the politics of tokenism, of appointing someone hopelessly overmatched for the position solely on the basis of gender. I have wondered if the Palin nomination would create something of an 'arms race' between the two parties to achieve true gender equality in politics. If this happens, then bring it."
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