To Hillary or Not To Hillary

I wanted to write a cogent dissection of the recent New Hampshire primaries with my personal breakdown of the real reasons why Hillary beat Barack, instead of losing to him again as all the pundits and polls had predicted.

On reflection, I realized I couldn't. So I just settled for writing an opening sentence about it. Truthfully, I don't give a rat's do-dah about the New Hampshire primary. And vice versa.

A little closer to home, I spent an hour in a meeting room at the high school with thirty or so of the most high powered women in the area, most of whom have retired their MBAs or left important positions in corporate America to be stay at home moms.

Even though the meeting was scheduled early, most were stylishly well-dressed, in a casual way, some even wearing designer suit jackets with their jeans. There was only one woman who didn't look like she could have walked out of a board meeting in a downtown office. Okay, maybe with some nicer shoes I could have.

The meeting was called to order. Introductions were made. Without much discussion, the heads of various committees gave their reports. Toward the end, an important creative presentation was made to much applause. The date of their next meeting was scheduled and this gathering of the high school graduation party committee was adjourned.

Times have changed.

Back when I had high school kids, meetings like this were held in someone's home a couple of months before the date. Some mom baked cookies. There was lots of meeting foreplay -- the wasted time spent just chatting about kids and family. Other moms went on and on about great coupons they saw in the paper. 

In the 21st century version I witnessed yesterday, nobody baked any cookies. Or bought them for that matter. There was no coffee or tea, except what you brought for yourself. The meeting was at the high school, not someone's home. Everything was managed efficiently and in an extremely businesslike manner. Which got me thinking.

I'm not sure whether Hillary will be our first female president. I do know that I see a key difference among a growing number of female voters that could very well make a female president possible.

There was a time, not too long ago, when females wouldn't vote for Hillary because they couldn't imagine a woman doing what they were raised to believe was only a man's job. Geraldine Ferraro as VP was a sideshow. But Hillary rode  the coattails of her husband's popular presidency and went on to do a good job in the Senate.

Now women look at Hillary and think, "I could do that." So if they don't vote for her, it's not because they think a woman shouldn't be president, it's because they think they could do a better job themselves.

They also understand why she teared up recently. Any professional woman juggling a career, husband, and family has found herself in the exact same emotional state at the end of a long, hard day.

Of course, right now these former business execs are all busy managing their own families, so they're perfectly happy to let Hillary take the lead on this one.

It's no longer a question of if a woman will be elected president, it's just a question of when.