Curtain call for Clinton’s drama – Ellen Goodman On Women’s Reach For the Highest Office.

Ellen Goodman traces the arc of conventions she’s attended, from “Shirley Chisholm’s run for the presidency turned into a sprint for the vice presidency to Geraldine Ferraro  saying, “American history is about doors being opened.” We were sure it was a beginning.

(She) was there in 1992, in the aftermath of the Clarence Thomas hearings when angry women energized the Year of the Woman, sending four new women to the Senate. The same year Hillary Clinton made her debut and her audition tape as the favorite target of the right wing.

This time, for the first time, the woman checked off the box of experience. And watched it reframed as “old politics.”

However many speakers talked about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, the ceiling is in place. While polls say that women now feel it’s more likely to have a woman president in the future, older women wonder, “In my lifetime?”

What we know about the “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” is that women need a farm team… Not enough women imagine themselves running for office and so do not run for office.”

AdvancingWomen thinks that is something we need to change.

Goodman says: “Near the end, the senator offered a long view. “My mother was born before women could vote,” she said. “My daughter got to vote for her mother for president.” That, for the moment, is history enough.”

We respectfully disagree.  That is not history enough.  That is just another step on a long and winding road that will eventually take us to the top… that will eventually take a woman crashing through that highest and hardest glass ceiling and into the seat of power in the Oval Office.  We will work together to do everything possible to make that day come sooner rather than later, starting with developing that farm team, with electing women dog catchers and sheriffs, city council women and mayors, governors, senators and ultimately….Madame President.