A female John McCain also probably wouldn't be running for office, because most 71-year-old women have better things to do. And, let's face it, at no time in these United States would a 71-year-old woman be elected to the presidency. We simply have a different standard for women than for men when it comes to age.
Those who tilt toward McCain do so precisely because of his manly record as a prisoner of war. His voting record, which can be viewed as reaching across the aisle, is seen by many conservatives as something else. National Journal, which also calculated Clinton's ranking, couldn't rate McCain because he didn't vote enough in 2007. His 2006 conservative score, however, was 56.7 (meaning that he was more conservative than 56.7 percent of other Republican senators).
Finally, Romney as a black woman Baptist would be the ideal candidate. She'd kill both birds -- race and gender -- for all time, and her religion would be a nonissue.
More to the point of what a presidential race should be about, she would be admired for her intelligence, her executive record as a governor and as the woman who bailed out the Olympics. We'd adore that in a woman.
A female Mitt Romney would also be attractive, well put together, disciplined, neatly dressed and carefully coiffed. We like that in women better than men, apparently. Mostly we would like that she had made such a success of her life while staying married to the same man, her high school sweetheart, and raising five exemplary children. We give white men little credit for those same accomplishments.
Some may be able to justify all these biases as recompense for past inequalities, but we shouldn't be confused about why we vote a certain way.
Far from transcending race and gender, we have made them our political masters.