Poll: Gender not important for Obama picks

When it comes to Barack Obama’s Cabinet, women offer some intriguing advice:

Gender shouldn’t matter.

That’s the finding of a new national poll of 600 women – two-thirds of respondents said Obama should focus strictly on qualifications and “should not consider gender at all” in building his team. 

A mere 3 percent said Obama should appoint an equal number of men and women to his Cabinet. And 27 percent staked out a middle ground – saying Obama should aim for gender balance, but not at the expense of finding the best people, the poll for the Lifetime Networks found.

Obama won high marks from women for picking Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State – with 71 percent backing her nomination strongly. But the poll also showed women were more comfortable with Clinton at State, as only 18 percent of women said they would prefer her in the White House.

Obama had faced some pushback early on from women’s groups concerned that his cabinet would be an all-boys club. Now he has tapped three women for his cabinet, including Clinton. Her historic campaign for the White House became a rallying cry for women, with gender serving as a fault line in her fierce primary battle against Obama.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, has pushed Obama to pick a diverse Cabinet – but said she wasn’t surprised by the poll’s findings. She said women expect highly qualified picks but would feel slighted if Obama overlooked women for his Cabinet.

Gandy praised the recent appointments as “diverse and top notch,” but said that future selections should be equally well-balanced. Obama tapped Susan Rice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—the first African-American woman nominated for the post—and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security.

“Considering the incredibly small numbers in which women are represented in Congress and generally in the executive branch, I think the goal should be parity,” Gandy said. “Although after all these years, there could be a little room for catch up too.”

The gender gap proved a stubborn one for president-elect Obama in the primary, with some Clinton backers balking at his nomination. Yet exit polls show that he won 56 percent of women voters in the general election.

The Lifetime survey included both voters and non-voters and was taken Nov. 21 through Nov. 24.