Can you imagine George Stephanopolous interviewing DeLay: “Nancy Pelosi’s first career was as the mother of five children while your first career was as a bug exterminator. Was that a deliberate ploy for the killer male vote?”
How about Tim Russert barreling in: “When your daughter was in third grade, she asked her mother if ‘someone had adopted daddy because he was never around.’ You said, and I quote, ‘I was totally self-centered. It was me, me, me, me, me. It was golf or business or politics that came first.’ Do you think that having a wife was an unfair male advantage?”
And Bob Schieffer: “You were part of the Gingrich revolution in 1994. This was about as male a cohort as the Augusta National Golf Club. Does that mean that you ran as an (angry, white) man?”
Finally, Wolf Blitzer: “Where do you get your hair cut?”
Ah fantasyland. As the next Congress opens, we’ll see two different images. A Democrat from the hills of a dot-com boom-and-bust country who smiles, maybe too much. A Republican from the flatlands of sprawl and oil who kept two bullwhips in his office. Both shine in that unisex venture of fund-raising. So how come only one is getting carved up?
Let us assume that it is still early in this political feast. I’m told that Pelosi’s specialty is dessert: Raspberry chocolate cake. I just hope we leave enough room.
Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company The Boston Globe