Women, Politics, and the Media in Pennsylvania

In this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer, Karen Heller (one of my favorite columnists) wrote an interesting opinion piece. (You can read it at http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/karen_heller/20140604_In_Pa___female_politicians_face_different_rules.html).

The thrust of her column is that women are not winning political races in Pennsylvania because of different rules for female candidates. Ms. Heller points out the fact that Pennsylvania is about to have an all-female congressional delegation because our one female representative in Congress, Allyson Schwartz, did not run for reelection so she could run for governor. In addition, in the Democratic race for the gubernatorial nomination, the two women candidates came in 2nd and 4th while the two males came in 1st and 3rd. She also points out that Pennsylvania has never elected a woman governor or senator.

Ms. Heller credits these statistics to the fact that there are different rules for women candidates. The main difference she cites is the likability quotient. Ms. Heller points out articles and comments which said that Representative Schwartz was not liked and that it was an issue when Hillary Clinton ran for president.

However, Pennsylvania has elected females to statewide office, the most recent being Attorney General Kathleen Kane in 2010. In the Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary in 2008, Hillary Clinton easily beat Barack Obama. There are many municipal and county elected officials throughout the state who are female.

So, do Pennsylvania voters really care if female candidates are likable but not male candidates? Pennsylvania is a solid blue state when it comes to presidential elections since 1988. However, I remember comments in all of those campaigns about whether the Democratic or Republican nominee was more likable. Some phrased it as "who would you rather sit down and have a beer with". I would like to point out that all 14 of the candidates in those 7 presidential races were men. In 1988, George H. W. Bush was looked at as more likable than Michael Dukakis. In 1992 and 1996, many commented on how likable Bill Clinton was and how empathetic (usually a characteristic reserved for women) he was as he beat also likable candidates George H. W. Bush and Bob ("We've never had a president named Bob and I think it's time") Dole.

In 2000 and 2004, the likable George W. Bush beat aloof candidates Al Gore (although not in the popular vote) and John Kerry. In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama was looked at as the more empathetic and likable candidate over John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Likability is an issue for all politicians and all races. One of the reasons that Rob McCord came in third instead of second in the gubernatorial primary is that voters perceived his "racist" attack on Tom Wolf to be nasty, i.e. not nice. Therefore, Rob McCord became less likable.

When making claims such as Pennsylvania never having elected a female governor or senator and attributing it to different rules for female candidates, I would like to see some numbers. The numbers I would like to see is how many men and how many women have run for governor of Pennsylvania in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

I would like to posit another theory, one that has been a sticking point for me (as I imagine the "different rules" argument has been for Ms. Heller). The media covers elections as if they are sports events. Who's ahead in the polls? Who's ahead in fundraising? I wish they would spend at least as much time discussing the issues and the candidates' stands on those issues. In fact, I would love to conduct an experiment, one that is not possible because we do have a free press who can report whatever they want.

I would like to see an election cycle go by in which the media reports the polls and fundraising in reverse order. That is, going into the Democratic gubernatorial primary, they would have reported that Katie McGinty had a big lead in polls and lots of money in her campaign account. They would have said that it looks like McCord would be a distant second with Schwartz right behind him, and that Wolf was badly trailing the others. What would the primary results have been? Would there have been any change? Would Tom Wolf have captured the nomination? I don't know the answer to that.

I would actually like to see the responsible media make a policy to not report fundraising or polling numbers but only to discuss the issues. If that happened, I think all candidates would have a more equal footing. I also think that Katie McGinty would have done much better than a poor 4th showing.

As far as the congressional race to replace Allyson Schwartz, I think it was more geography and name recognition than issues Polls were not reported except for one from 2013 that showed much of the district felt favorable to Margolies and had generally not heard of the others. And, as usual, the issues were generally not reported.

In the race for this district, which is mostly in Montgomery County but has a substantial Philadelphia portion, there were 3 candidates from Montgomery County and 1 from Philadelphia. Surprise, surprise, the candidate from Philadelphia won. I don't think it was a decision based on the sex of the candidates at all.

In the history of the Commonwealth, female candidates for Congress, Governor, and Senator are a relatively new phenomenon and I doubt that many Pennsylvania voters make their decisions based on the genitals of the candidates.