I’m spending a few mornings at Hillary/Michelle/Maggie Headquarters so I should try to write a rational post or two about how I’m feeling about this election…saving the rants for Facebook. First of all can I just say how very fine it is to have these three women—smart experienced serious articulate Liberal Women running for offices to which it is quite likely they will all be elected.

First up—HILLARY CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

I have many reasons for voting for Hillary but let me get the woman part out of the way right now. Yes, I want a woman president, but not just any woman you understand…imagine Sarah Palin anywhere near the oval office and the cold chills up and down my spine are equal to imaging Mr. Shyster in charge—of anything. But Hillary, well I’m okay with smart, experienced, serious articulate and slightly leftish. And yes, she is flawed and after all these perfect guys running the world that’s a little challenging but I think I can deal with it.

I would find electing the first woman president of the U.S. even more exciting if we weren’t so damn late to the  party in terms of women leaders. Over 70 other countries already have or have had female heads of state…for god’s sake even Pakistan was ahead of us…and India and South Korea and the Philippines and on and on. Never mind the Scandinavian countries which are pretty much in the lead on every front. Even Africa where the good old boys are about as firmly in place as in the U.S. has had to resort to women now and then; for example Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, currently serving her second term and managing to bring some degree of stability to a country very nearly destroyed by the men on the scene lo those many years.

The Michelle mentioned above is Michelle Lujan Grisham, one of New Mexico’s three congressional representatives. I am ashamed to admit I’ve contributed neither time nor money to her campaigns—which must change since, from everything I do know, she is strong and she is right (meaning slightly left) on nearly every issue that’s important.

Maggie is Maggie Toulouse Oliver running for Secretary of State. I used to see her with her grandparents Jim and Charlotte Toulouse, Democratic Party stalwarts, when she was a kid. She came into the office last week—poised and polished and smart and ready to take on the world—or at least the state of New Mexico. Jim and Charlotte would be proud.

Here’s one of my theories about why we need way way more women in high office, besides the basic fairness of ‘equal representation.’ Intelligence and ability are probably pretty equally shared between the sexes but history has given women a break when it comes to temperament. Actually history and biology I suppose. Those cave women giving birth weren’t usually expected to go out and hack off the neighbors’ heads so the need to mark territories and victoriously exhibit dead-body trophies from just across the latest line in the sand didn’t get bred into female genes. Therefore we women aren’t as prone to the ‘mine’s bigger than yours’—referring to bloody sword-swinging hands or whatever the manly symbol might be for any given decade or century—syndrome which is probably responsible for half the world’s violence.

Sure sure, we believe the big conflicts are all about oil and religion and race and ethnicity and territory and yes on the surface they are… Still there’s a huge element of the boys and their toys challenging each other out there—in the name of course of one of those ‘bigger’ issues. Overall Women Will Be Less Apt to Engage in Those Competitions. I Think. We played with different toys!

I have other theories as well…equally unscientific and possibly irrational…but we’ll never know until an equal number of females are in positions to bomb or not to bomb will we?

There are so many other reasons to elect Hillary Clinton—her lifelong support of women’s issues among them. Maybe I’ll talk more about that in future posts. Everyone else in the world is—why not me?