Opinion: The Democrats should now double down on women

In blackjack, when you have a strong opening hand, the best players “double down” so they can increase their earnings.

The Democratic Party has gambled and folded the Biden nomination. They should now hand the cards over to Vice President Kamala Harris for a historic run against the Donald Trump-J.D. Vance pair of jokers.

But if the Democrats either anoint or nominate Biden’s 2020 running mate, then its new leader faces a crucial choice: Who should be her veep? Does she pick a white, male Southern governor like North Carolina’s Roy Cooper or Kentucky’s Andy Beshear? Or Pennsylvania’s wunderkind Gov. Josh Shapiro? Maybe former astronaut and senator from Arizona, Mark Kelly?

All worthy choices but I believe the Democratic Party can no longer play it safe and go with the “establishment” choice or the “ticket balancing pick.”

It’s time for women to take over the reins of this country. Men, almost all of them white, have ruled the U.S. since 1776 – in other words, 248 years. That’s a lot of testosterone, needless wars and reckless policies that have resulted in a bitterly divided country.

Kamala Harris should pick Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a solidly feminist, courageous and competent Midwestern governor. The subject of a rap song, “Big Gretch,” Whitmer has stared down a dangerous kidnapping plot and defeated the Republican majority in her legislature.

Americans care about inflation, the economy, crime and affordable health care. But none of these are so under attack as is women’s bodily autonomy. Because of former President Trump’s conservative and misguided Supreme Court picks, tens of millions of women face difficulties getting access to abortion and the freedom that comes with personal choice. 

But as bad as things are in the wake of the Dobbs case, a Trump-Vance victory will almost certainly make them worse. A national ban is a strong possibility; criminalizing the use of mifepristone as an abortion pill is also threatened; and in a shocking hardline view, VP nominee Vance wants to ban abortions even in cases of rape and incest. You can take the rural storyteller to Yale and Wall Street and the Senate, but clearly you can’t entirely erase his Hillbilly thinking.

Harris-Whitmer can be a powerful symbol of shifting power dynamics in the wake of Dobbs and the #MeToo movement. They can contrast their support of abortion choice as a civil right, like the racial and sexual civil rights crusades have animated the last few decades. 

This female dynamic duo would energize the 55% of the electorate who are either grandmothers, mothers or women of childbearing age. Men like me, a father of three daughters, will join the crusade to elect two women who will make history.

Countries like the United Kingdom, Israel, India, most of the Scandinavian countries and a few progressive African countries have all had women leaders over the past five decades. Almost all of them went on to be strong, respected and incorruptible leaders who inspired generations of young women in their countries to strive for greatness.

America became a beacon of hope and change in 2008, when we elected our first Black president. Barack Obama’s rise came at the expense of the first potential female president, and Hillary Clinton’s path to the White House was thwarted again in 2016, despite a huge popular vote margin over Donald Trump.

America – and the Democratic Party – needs to take a bold step and double down on women in August in Chicago. Nominate Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer as the Democratic ticket, and watch them run rings around the two misogynists from Florida and Ohio. Any self-respecting woman who does not vote for these two highly competent women will be a traitor to their gender and their country.

America can’t regress and become a nation where women are consigned once again to back-alley dangerous abortions. 

It is time for change and for America to elect a presidential ticket as young and dynamic as the Clinton-Gore ticket was three decades ago. 

The Democratic Party has a strong opening hand – it should double down and watch the riches that can be gained from electing two women who will finally end almost 250 uninterrupted years of male rule in the greatest democracy in the world.