Elizabeth Dole and America’s Second Woman President

The early failure of Elizabeth Hanford Dole’s Presidential campaign disappointed but did not surprise me. Despite Libby Dole’s impressive résumé, she did not fit the profile of the candidate about to break the gender barrier. She did not present herself as a woman who was tougher than the men (Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir are the prototypes), nor was she the wife, daughter, or widow of a revered or martyred leader (such as India’s Indira Ghandi, Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, and the Philippines’ Corazon Aquino). Although being wounded in World War II may have helped Dole’s husband, Bob, obtain the Republican Vice Presidential nomination in 1976 and the Presidential nomination in 1996, it neither got him elected nor rubbed off on her Presidential bid.