He doesn't foresee a groundswell to elect a woman just to make history; he thinks it'll happen only when the candidate and the issues mesh.
If he were advising on a woman-for-president campaign, Cunningham says, he'd be careful not to make that the focus of the race. That very thing undercut the short-lived Elizabeth Dole presidential run in the 2000 primaries, he says. He notes, wryly, that he might make an exception on a Hillary Clinton campaign, if only to use the historic first to steer attention away from the "Clinton baggage" that would inevitably be part of her presidential run.
Not that he'd get anywhere near a Hillary campaign, but Cunningham concedes she could win in 2008. She'd rally forces strongly for and against her, he says, and her campaign would have to appeal to undecided and swing voters. In a way, he says, that wouldn't be greatly unlike the George Bush strategy.
If only for the theater of it, how can you root against a Rice-Clinton showdown? If that wouldn't energize sleepy voters, we should quit having elections.
Cunningham is confident of one thing: The campaign staff of the first female candidate with a real shot to win will have a blast. Campaign workers like politics because they feel it attaches them to history, and there's no doubt that history beckons to the first female president.
President Geena Davis, anyone?
