MADAM PRESIDENT: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling.

• Author: MacPherson, Myra
• Position: Review

MADAM PRESIDENT Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling by Tom Brazaitis and Eleanor Clift Scribner, $26.00

AS WE ENTER THE 21 ST CENTURY, FACTS DO not augur well for any woman who aims to become president of the United States. There are only nine women in the Senate and only three female governors--major ticket-punching political "farm clubs" that provide the credentials and name recognition to run for the presidency.

Money is hard to come by for women, despite the success of Emily's List--a fund-raising organization that has supported women candidates including former Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Sen. Barbara Mikulski. Given the obscene millions needed for presidential campaigns, as one male operative says, "Emily's List is chump change." Put that together with a major gender-bender--a reluctance on the part of both women and men to support a woman for high office--and it is one rough slog.

In theory it should be easier. One Democratic poll showed that 90 percent of respondents would vote for a woman candidate for president. (Interestingly, women without college educations are the most supportive, but the authors of Madam President unfortunately neglect to explain why.)

But it turns out that people tend to tell pollsters one thing and then act differently when confronted by flesh-and-blood candidates. In practice, the woman candidate faces an impossibly high standard. She is expected to be a female version of God--if God isn't, in fact, a woman.

So what's a woman to do? Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis look at the past, present, and future of women in politics in their examination of the quest for Madam President. The disheartening conclusion is that the first female candidate will have to be safe, mainstream, and conventional. No boat rockers, the likes of John McCain, need apply.

These two journalists--a husband and wife team--are inside-the-beltway veterans (Clift: "The McLaughlin Group" panelist and contributing editor for Newsweek, Brazaitis: Washington editor and columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer). The book reflects their bent. They drive the middle of the road with conventional wisdom as their HOV passenger. For example, they write that presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole was spurned by the Republican establishment in favor of "another moderate, [George W.] Bush." There are a lot of adjectives that fit Bush--anti-choice, pro-big business, pro-death penalty, pro-polluters, pro-guns--but moderate isn't one of them.

That said, the book is a valuable compendium of facts and solid reporting for...