Detroit News: Vote for Hillary, and for history

I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday but after receiving this e-mail, I wished I had.

"I just wanted you to know that I voted for a woman yesterday and feel really good about myself today," it said. The writer was a lawyer and, also, a man.

Like many of the 328,121 people in Michigan who voted for Clinton, my e-mailer voted dutifully, despite the Democratic National Committee's decision to strip Michigan of its delegates, despite the decision of Barack Obama and John Edwards to remove their names from the ballot. He ignored the political mess that kept candidates from campaigning and voted.

Only when he walked away from the booth did he realize that he'd somehow budged the needle of history by voting for a woman.

An editor I work with described her young son's placemat illustrating the presidents -- "more than 200 years of white, male leaders" -- and how Tuesday's election heightened the possibility of the next placemat edition including a woman or African-American male.

None of those I spoke to voted for Hillary Clinton because she was a woman. But later they described feeling part of some historic wave, like women must have after first winning suffrage, or Americans first voting for George Washington.

By the day after, it was apparent that whether or not those 328,121 votes for Hillary Clinton ever send a single delegate to the national convention floor, they weren't throwaways. They mattered.

On Wednesday morning, my 7-year-old daughter was eyeing the latest Newsweek on the table. "That's Hillary Clinton, isn't it mom? It says: 'I found my own voice.' "

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080117/OPINION03/801170371/1022/rss10

and at the same time sad, that we are so behind other countries in getting to this point

I'd rather not.