No ‘wifey’ successor to their husbands, US and Argentina both have strong women presidential candidates.

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s first lady and senator, 54, is known for her elegant sense of fashion, her love of travel, her fiery speaking style and her occasionally controversial international shopping trips. She won office as a legislator long before her husband ran for president.

Biographically, her similarities to Hillary Clinton are striking. Both are sitting senators. Both are married to men they met in law school. Both have been first lady. And both want to be president. But as Fernandez points out, she was a successful politician before her husband’s presidency. By the time he was elected governor of the Santa Cruz province in southern Argentina in 1991, she had already been a provincial legislator for two years.

“She clearly does not want to be seen as the ‘wifey’ successor to her husband,” said Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. “Therefore, establishing herself as an independent politician is very important — at home as well as overseas.”

Cox Newspapers – Washingon Bureau | Argentina’s Hilary Leads Race for President

~ by mentalimaging on September 18, 2007.