Politics, Not as Usual

After Tuesday’s Nebraska primary election, a televised news report noted that although both major party nominees for governor are women, “the rhetoric is the same.” The implication was that--surprise--the political discussion and issues involved in the campaign were the same as if the nominees had been men. Well, of course they were. Democrat Helen Boosalis and Republican Kay Orr ran as candidates for office, and qualified ones at that. They weren’t competing for queen of the county fair.

Certainly, it is historic that the Nebraska gubernatorial contest this year pits two females against each other, thus guaranteeing that the Cornhusker State will have a woman in the Statehouse for the coming four years. But, please, let’s allow the novelty of this pass quickly. “Sex was never an issue in this campaign,” said Boosalis, who handily won over six primary opponents. Orr defeated seven other Republicans.

Those who check the record will see this was no fluke or oddity. Boosalis has served 16 years on the Lincoln City Council and eight years as mayor of Lincoln, the state capital. She is a former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and has directed the state Department on Aging. Orr formerly was a top staff aide to a governor and has been state treasurer the past five years. That makes both candidates far more experienced in government than was the popular Gov. Robert Kerrey, a Democrat, when he ran and was elected in 1982. Kerrey decided not to seek reelection.

It is true, in a sense, that every nomination and election of a woman to public office is a milestone. There still are too many barriers, most of them in the mind, to full participation by women in the American political process. But there is no question about women’s ability to address the issues on a par with men, or their competence to govern. That fact will be demonstrated time and again when women are not just nominated and elected, but reelected and reelected.