This blog grows out of a response to another on these pages, a story about the disappointment women, especially women above a certain age, feel about Hillary Clinton's loss in the run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. These stories cite much handwringing along the "if not now, when" line. I have seen stories along these lines all over the "journalistic" map within the last week or so, from the pages of CHB to the lofty New York Times on Sunday.

The disappointment is palpable. And it is woefully misplaced.

As this and most stories on this topic point out, Senator Clinton has blazed a trail that comes very close to victory in the primary.

What I have yet to see addressed in any of these articles is what Obama's success indicates for the next candidate to become the first woman president. Senator Obama entered the campaign as a decided underdog. As would most any future woman candidate; Senator Clinton's uniqueness lay only in her already extant very large national profile. It is very hard to find another woman in the U.S. with similar visibility. Only Speaker Pelosi comes even close. But that is why Senator Obama's candidacy is so positive for future women candidates. He had virtually no mainstream party support. He was an outsider. He had one prominent speech under his belt on which to build an entire candidacy.

All but a handful of women who hold public office today are similarly outsiders where the national party machinery is concerned. Senator Obama has shown them how to win in spite of that serious disadvantage. Organize, organize, organize. Inspire, inspire, inspire. Do these things and you can topple giants of your own party, even when their last name is Clinton. Even when they have a dramatic first in their column to exploit in a sizeable portion of the electorate.

This approach, sadly, would be much easier for a woman in the Democratic party because of the proportional awarding of candidates. It would be very hard for a Republican woman to capture early states to stake herself to a lead because she would need outright victories to claim any delegates. A very close second is worth nothing in a Republican primary. On the Democratic side, Senator Obama simply outworked Senator Clinton in Iowa to win those caucuses, then hung a very close second in New Hampshire to place second in the vote but actually WIN more delegates. Not a bad miss. Even in the states where he allegedly was walloped, the damage in the delegate count was minor (he got more delegates in Texas then Senator Clinton, who still claims to have won there!).

Jimmy Carter's primary campaign was a rougher version of the same strategy; make inroads in the early, smaller states and show viability. Work up the ladder in the later states to victory.

Bill Clinton followed a somewhat different but equally instructive path: run close enough in the early states to be the leader when the folks above you on the ladder knock each other out of the race. Be the last one standing through sheer stubbornness and will.

Neither of these guys was the annointed one at the beginning but they saw a way to the end and stuck with it.

So the women who want to be president need to look at the Carter, Clinton, and Obama primary strategies to see how it can be done, and at this campaign to see that being a woman is not a barrier anymore. And then build the networks in the early primary states to get there.

Enough with the handwringing. Get on with it. It takes some time, but you have 8 years to pick your candidate and lay the groundwork. Making nice with a future President and his precinct captains wouldn't do any harm either.

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