JPR folks out themselves. They dont want to believe in Russian interference because of...

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80. Welcome to DU, PragmaticDem.

Indeed she would have.

I still ache when I think back to the text I sent to my daughter the night before the election - when we both, like so many others, expected her to win. I talked about how much I looked forward to making a statement to the whole world, as well as to women around the world. How much I looked forward to the most powerful person on earth being a WOMAN. Especially one of her caliber. How long I've been waiting for a moment like this, just in general, and then since 1992 when I first discovered her during her husband's first presidential campaign, and how impressed I was.

I've written about that before, here. I was enthralled. Mesmerized! The more I learned about her, the more I came to love and admire her. I came to the realization that, in many respects, she was ME! How so? Well, this was the first First Lady aspirant who was even close to my age. She's just a few years older than I am. First time there was a potential presidential wife to whom I could relate. All the others up til then were of my mother's generation, or old enough to be my grandmother. THIS candidate's wife I could actually relate to. Personally. She was a lot like me. Working wife. Working mother. Brought home a bigger paycheck than her husband did. Loved and found great fulfillment in her job. Didn't define herself solely as a 'housewife" or "wife-and-mother". She had her own ideas and wasn't afraid to speak her mind (which was considerable). She had more to contribute, and DID. Just as I felt about myself. I didn't get around to trying to start a family til after we'd been married for 13 years. My career was that important to me. When I heard that soundbite "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies..." that almost literally shot through me like a lightning bolt had just struck me. It was literally electrifying!

Don't get me wrong. I, too, am a wife-and-mother. I eventually got there myself. And I worked hard at it. Even gave up my career so I could do right by my kids. But there was, and still is, so much more to me than just exclusively that. And I made sure they saw that side of me, too, even in later part-time work situations. I'd seen and known enough to understand that sometimes the "wife and mother" label didn't apply so loftily. I knew a lot of "wife-and-mother" types who were abysmal at it.

My most glaring example was - a good friend whose mother had her fifth child (an "oopsie" after she thought she was too old) who totally abandoned her responsibilities to that fifth child. Couldn't wait to grab the car keys and split for the day, go on long driving trips to do "antiquing" or "junking" or scrounging every garage sale in town or gossiping with her friends most of the day. MY friend? That fifth child got pawned off on her. My friend was my age, and we were both in high school. Just old enough to have recently earned our driver's licenses. And it was my friend, the eldest child, who got up, fixed breakfast for her younger siblings, helped the youngest get cleaned up and dressed (in clean clothes for which my friend had the laundry duty), and later, driving her little sister everywhere, taking her shopping, helping her with her homework, doing all those things Mom should have done. And I kept wondering about my friend - why she was being denied her own teenager years to be a student and start dating and - well - HAVE THAT TIME. That time which was supposed to be pretty carefree when you're that age and you DON'T yet have all those wife-and-mother responsibilities. Meanwhile, her absentee mom was busy goofing off with the other wives and garage-sale fans and fellow chain-smokers of hers. I really felt bad for my friend. She never complained, but I burned! I hated seeing that. She may not have shown resentment toward her mom, but it didn't matter - I felt enough resentment for both of us.