Geraldine Ferraro was just channeling Shirley Chisholm

Per “Woman of the House,” Vincent Bzdek’s new bio of Nancy Pelosi, Chisholm on more than one occasion said it was tougher to be a woman in Congress than an African-American.

“I met far more discrimination as a woman in the field of politics.”

And, most relevant to the current campaign, she said black men told her she shouldn’t run for president in 1972.

Today, many more conservative black-majority churches still have the same view of women and leadership, from the household on up to political office, as more conservative white-majority churches do. I’m not saying Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity UCC holds that view; I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.

And, per the whole “Bradley effect,” that voters will tell pollsters in public they’re going to vote for a black, but don’t actually do that? The same happens to women.

Perhaps we could call it the Kennelly effect. Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly ran for chairwoman of the Democratic Caucus in 1989, propelled by promises of votes from fellow members that later evaporated.

And, Congresswomen note that, even in the halls of the Capitol, people simply assume that sexism, like racism, doesn’t exist.

So, that takes me back to Ferraro’s second comment, after her original one that Obama wouldn’t be where he is today if he weren’t black. She then charged Obama campaign manager David Axelrod with playing the race card.

He’s probably not totally innocent, I’ll put it that way.