Random questions on a Sunday morning

Perusing the Sunday papers,I have two political questions for readers: 1) Maureen Dowd, covering the French presidential election, has some fun at Segolene Royal’s expense, but then drops this stunner of a sentence: France is chauvinistic ? women got the vote in 1944 and compose only a small percentage of the National Assembly ? but ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Perusing the Sunday papers,I have two political questions for readers: 1) Maureen Dowd, covering the French presidential election, has some fun at Segolene Royal's expense, but then drops this stunner of a sentence: France is chauvinistic ? women got the vote in 1944 and compose only a small percentage of the National Assembly ? but the country seems less neurotic than America about the idea of a woman as president. Question: on what basis is Dowd making this assertion? I know that Hillary Clinton has many, many detractors, but has the discourse on her campaign to date really focused on her gender all that much? The dominant theme in the discussions about Clinton have been her position on Iraq and her campaign's Bush-like quality of recording friends and enemies. Where is this gender neuroses Dowd mentions? 2) In the Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr. profiles the GOP's non-candidate candidate, Fred Thompson. The lead is pretty clear: Fred Thompson fervently backed the Iraq war, railed against an expanding federal government, took stands that occasionally annoyed his party and rarely spoke about his views on social issues during his tenure as a senator from Tennessee or in his writings and speeches since leaving office. In short, the man some in the GOP are touting as a dream candidate has often sounded like the presidential hopeful many of them seem ready to dismiss: Sen. John McCain. The story makes it clear that besides his strong defense of federalism and his obvious telegenic qualities, Thompson does not cut a profile different from the top-tier GOP candidates. Question: will Thompson only be the flavor of the month until he announces?

Perusing the Sunday papers,I have two political questions for readers:

1) Maureen Dowd, covering the French presidential election, has some fun at Segolene Royal’s expense, but then drops this stunner of a sentence:

France is chauvinistic ? women got the vote in 1944 and compose only a small percentage of the National Assembly ? but the country seems less neurotic than America about the idea of a woman as president.

Question: on what basis is Dowd making this assertion? I know that Hillary Clinton has many, many detractors, but has the discourse on her campaign to date really focused on her gender all that much? The dominant theme in the discussions about Clinton have been her position on Iraq and her campaign’s Bush-like quality of recording friends and enemies. Where is this gender neuroses Dowd mentions? 2) In the Washington Post, Perry Bacon Jr. profiles the GOP’s non-candidate candidate, Fred Thompson. The lead is pretty clear:

Fred Thompson fervently backed the Iraq war, railed against an expanding federal government, took stands that occasionally annoyed his party and rarely spoke about his views on social issues during his tenure as a senator from Tennessee or in his writings and speeches since leaving office. In short, the man some in the GOP are touting as a dream candidate has often sounded like the presidential hopeful many of them seem ready to dismiss: Sen. John McCain.

The story makes it clear that besides his strong defense of federalism and his obvious telegenic qualities, Thompson does not cut a profile different from the top-tier GOP candidates. Question: will Thompson only be the flavor of the month until he announces?

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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