Television and film, as the real Republicans know, is where political change takes place and political momentum solidified. That is why Bush has been the consummate photo-op president. (Let's not forget Glenn Close played "President" Harrison Ford's right-hand woman in Air Force One, four years before Condoleezza Rice was made secretary of state.) Finally we have a show that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power before Hillary and her juggernaut, the Democratic National Congress, who are far less sure-footed about image-making on all its levels, have to change hearts and minds. For a party dogged with a Macbeth-like curse since the Clinton era, this seems like a karmic payload, and not a moment too soon.
I suppose Wolf thinks her fellow Americans are too stupid to grasp the notion of a woman running the country until we see it on TV. Geez, if it weren't for Geena Davis, I'd never have considered such a new-fangled notion. What'll they think of next?
Besides, as Scott Burgess points out, Americans are all too comfortable with the notion of President Hillary.
In her Guardian article, Ms. Wolf seems to imply that, were it not for a TV show "that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power" (this just after a sole, parenthetical mention of Condoleezza Rice), a Clinton candidacy would be doomed by the inability of the unacclimatised to accept a female President. In her eagerness to credit the TV show with an unlikely importance (it "... could change US politics for ever", as the subhead hyperbolically puts it), she paints herself as out of touch with current political reality - in fact, a May poll found a majority "likely" to vote for Sen. Clinton, even before being instructed to by the producers of Commander-in-Chief. And a more recent poll indicated that 79% of Americans "felt comfortable with a female president".
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