Sen. Hillary Clinton  just delivered the single best speech of her campaign.

If  only she had done this on Tuesday night, what a powerful message that would have sent. Instead it comes late and with not a little bit of awkwardness in its timing. But... better late than never.

Of course there are things in her speech that I would tweak. However, on the whole, she exceeded expectations. especially from those of us who expected the tricky, slippery triangulations of the Clintons of the past.

I hope that this is the Hillary Clinton we will see on the campaign trail ahead. (That said, I do not want  her as VP, but I think this speech certainly earned a cabinet post or Supreme Court nod, if she is interested.)

Cheers to Hillary for giving one hell of speech. 

Over at another major blog site run by Arianna Huffington, I've read several posts throughout the primary season by women (womyn?) writers like Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong to name two, who have repeatedly cried foul.

Hillary, they say, is the victim of unchecked, unreported, unbridled sexism. Ms. Jong, best known for the fictional sex-romp "Fear of Flying," wrote that she was pissed off that this was the last chance that she would ever have in her lifetime to vote for a woman. She begrudgingly said she would vote for Sen. Obama. I could just imagine her: shoulders slumped, scuffing her feet, rolling her eyes, monosyllabically mumbling, barely audible, like some petulant teenager.

Ms. Jong's reaction to Hillary's defeat is hardly different than that of the angry, vocal distaff segment of the 17 million or so persons who voted for Sen. Clinton. The reactions range from those tinged with racial bias ("I won't/can't vote for a black man") to defiant feminist ("I'll only vote for a woman") to those who will stay at home or those who vow to vote for John McCain.

This group of Clinton's core demographic -- white women -- is an interesting mix of what has been described as "second wave feminists" (the Steinem era bra-burners) most of whom are financially stable, past childbearing age, well-educated. The other end of the spectrum are the "working class," less financially stable, less educated, younger, more conservative, and less likely to describe themselves as "feminists."

It is puzzling to me that Hillary Clinton is seen as the "Great White Women's Last Best Hope" to put a woman in the White House. From a "feminist" perspective -- that is, from a perspective where the gender of a candidate is pre-eminent -- Hillary Clinton is one of hundreds of women who are fully capable of running the country. In fact, there have been women pursuing the nomination from both parties in recent years. Women who could have cracked the so-called glass ceiling if only their sisters had given them a leg up.

Every time Ralph Nader has run for President (and he is fast approaching if not overtaking Harold Stassen's status as perennial candidate), Nader has chosen a female running mate. The late former Sen. Eugene McCarthy (who famously ran against Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and again 1972) ran as recently as 1988 with a woman as his VP on the Consumer Party ticket.

Granted, running as an independent minimizes your chances of changing the locks on the Oval Office doors. But if issues are what drives your the polls, wouldn't a woman on the ticket be a motivating factor?

But let's take a look at the major parties -- Republican and Democratic. We know the history of Geraldine Ferraro as VP running mate to Walter Mondale in 1984. But did you know that there were 8 women running for Vice President on a variety of tickets that year?

Did you know that since 1964 there have been 8 women who ran for the Presidential nomination on either the Republican or Democratic ticket? From Margaret Chase Smith (Republican, 1964) who challenged Barry Goldwater to Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004 as a Democrat, onstage alongside John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Al Sharpton and others.

Moseley-Braun could have been a two-fer had "feminists" supported her. She was the second African-American Senator elected since reconstruction (Edward Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts and one-time love interest of Barbara Walters, was the first. Barack Obama is the third.) But women did not rally around her candidacy. Here is a self-made woman, who did not rely on a resume written with her husband's accomplishments, who did not lean on a political machine built by her husband. A woman who is every bit as progressive as Clinton. A woman, a Senator, a candidate that the white feminist establishment ignored. Shame on them.

If a woman President is your goal, you also could have voted for Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) in 2000. Ellen McCormack would have appreciated your support in 1976, and so would have Rep. Patsy Mink, Rep. Shirley Chisholm and none other than Rep. Bella Abzug in 1972.

So to suggest that Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the last best hope in your lifetime to see a woman President is silly hyperbole. And worse, it is damning evidence of unwillingness to really put your vote where your mouth is. Talented women have come forward to run, and women of both parties have failed to support them.

The undercurrent to this story is in part the continuing friction between white women and black women and men as competing political constituencies. As newly freed black men were struggling for political recognition, so were white women. The suffrage question was one that would not have been satisfied for black women: if black husbands were denied the vote in favor of white women, black wives were unrepresented by extension through their husbands.The suffragettes weren't fighting to extend enfranchisement to their black sisters. It was white women before black people.

There will be more women running for national office. They all will not be white women. But remember that if your goal is to put a woman in the White House, you need to support the women who run. All the women.

Not just a former First Lady.

I'm watching CNN right now. There was a commercial on about Quantas, the Australian airline. Interesting that they have been in service for 87 years. And if I'm not mistaken, crash-free. So the commerical is showing the flight attendants serving salmon on real plates with real silverware, serving wine in glasses, large comfy seats that convert into beds. A shot of a guy fully reclined and covered in his red blanket enjoying a snooze. What if he was so relazed he let one rip? Is it okay to laugh? I wonder if Quantas has onboard air freshener...

Any way... back to Hillary and Barack's Excellent Secret Meeting Adventure.... The prequel to Weekend at Hillary's...

A funny thing happened today... something I didn't expect.
 
I was making lunch for my soon to be 79-year old mother and she asked me what was going on in the wacky world of politics. During much of this election, she has tried to avoid the daily temper tantrums of Hillary, or the latest tirade from Bill. So periodically, I'll tell her to flip over to which ever channel and watch Barack or Michelle. About the only thing she'll voluntarily turn to is Keith Olbermann.  Special Comments from Keith often have her whooping and applauding. When Keith goes off, it's back to Cops or some crime show.

Saturday we watched the RBC proceedings from our separate favorite tv watching rooms, and periodically I'd check on her. We both noticed how much James Roosevelt, one of the co-chairs looked like his grandfather, Franklin. We'd talk about the parallel of politics then and now. We cheered when it was over, happy with the result.

So today, while making lunch, I started to ask her if she ever thought she'd see in her lifetime -- let alone mine -- a black man running for president. A black man as the Democratic party's <i>nominee?</i> Did you ever think you'd see this day come?

Except that I couldn't quite get the words out. Unexpectedly, just as I had that thought, I had glanced at my mom, sitting at the dining room table, playing a quick game of solitaire while waiting for lunch -- much the same way I and my four siblings used to sit patiently at the table before thousands of lunches or dinners entertaining ourselves.  Did you ever think you'd see the day?

I was born the same year as Brown versus Topeka B.O.E. and I didn't think I would see it. My dad, who passed away in 2000, saw the Millenium, but not this.Neither did my uncle on my mother's side, nor my paternal grandfather. My grandmother, who passed away in 2004, didn't live to see it. Nor did any of her five sisters and one brother. Their parents -- my great grandparents died within months of each other young, very young, leaving their six children behind. The eldest, one of my great aunts, was barely into her teens, the youngest, my great uncle was a toddler. My great grandparents and their parents would have lived through the last vestiges of slavery, and all of Jim Crow in South Carolina.

I imagine their dreams were never of a black man becoming President, but of just living free.

So, just as I was about to ask the question that I know a lot of working, hard working Americans, <b><i>black Americans</b></i> are asking each other, that montage of images flashed through my mind and I was choked up. I was on the mountaintop looking at a panoramic view of past and future. How far we have come, how far we have yet to go. But... WOW! How far we have come. I saw the promised land. Too many didn't live to see what I see.

So I didn't ask Mom if she ever thought she live to see the day... Because I know what her answer would be. No. Neither of us did.

But for the first time in my adult life...