While watching the first presidential debate, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a performance of “My Fair Lady.”
On a number of moments, I thought that Donald Trump, in his demeaning style, was Professor Henry Higgins and he was addressing Hillary Clinton as if she was poor Liza Doolittle.
Trump insisted on interrupting her and made numerous side noises and grunts.
I wondered whether he would do the same thing if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton was his adversary.
I don’t claim to be an expert on body language, but his annoyance and demeanor pointed to the fact that not only doesn’t he like her, he has a woman problem.
This debate raises an underlying issue that no pollster is asking about or at least has not been reported.
The question that will linger as Election Day approaches is whether voters want a woman running the country?
There is no doubt that there are a lot of men in the heartland who would gladly share a beer with Donald Trump.
Besides the fact that Trump would never share a beer with them, they wouldn’t think of having a sit down with Hillary at a Sunday football game.
The White House has a history of tough-minded presidential spouses helping run the country.
Going as far back as Woodrow Wilson, his wife was in charge while Wilson was ailing from a stroke.
If you think Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan made all their own decisions you are sadly mistaken.
Roslyn Carter was one tough woman and Nancy Reagan wouldn’t let the president make a decision without consulting the astrological calendar.
Somehow, for some voters, it is acceptable to have a tough lady in the White House, just so long as she doesn’t hold the title of president. And that is the dilemma for female candidates.
From time to time, Republicans invoke the name of Margaret Thatcher, the late British Prime Minister, as their vision of a strong leader, but they attach it to Ronald Reagan as if they were a power couple, and not two separate and distinct personalities.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean there are 20 women in control of their countries, dealing each day with the same crises that we face on this side of the world.
The Prime Minister of Myanmar, formerly Burma, won the right to serve, despite the hostility of the military powers.
She lives in perpetual danger, but wants to serve her people at any cost.
How about the United States Senate?
That’s the place where everyone of the senators think they should be president.
We had three sitting senators, Rubio, Paul and Cruz, seeking the White House, yet the Republican Party made no effort to advance a woman for that position to counteract Mrs. Clinton.
What’s wrong with senators Collins, Feinstein, Murray, Capito, Gillibrand and Mikulski? Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina is a rising star, but somehow the locker room crowd wouldn’t consider making her the Vice President choice.
In Donald Trump’s world, women are loyal executives who do his bidding, secretaries, beauty contest winners and Hollywood types, so long as he rates them a “10.”
People like Carly Fiorina, Heidi Cruz, Mika Brezinski and Elizabeth Warren get tarred with ugly nicknames and derision by the man who wants to be the leader of the free world.
Donald Trump turned out to be a flop as Henry Higgins as he couldn’t convince the viewers that Hillary Clinton was an empty suit.
At the next debate, he will have another opportunity to take his best shot at his opponent, but she will in turn have a chance to sharpen her arrows for him.
Mrs. Clinton is not another one of his past targets, who didn’t have a national platform to fight back.
Maybe her smarts and her resilience will convince some undecided voters that it is permissible to vote for a woman.
