as feminist disappointment to me -- the way powerful poster boy politicians with good hair and ACLU cards (and their smart lawyer wives) treat flesh-and-blood young women in their own real sphere, matters more to me than what they say on the stump, in the studio or in cyberspace.

If you PERSONALLY exploit (meaning screw them figuratively or literally, for your own purposes) individual women, if you care more about your own image, sex and power games -- or even if you do care about daughters and wives and moms, but are too weak and wimpy to stand up for us and with us when it counts most and might cost you the most -- then you fail my feminist test, no matter what your platform or voting record.

Do I sound bitter?
But here's a thought. During the Clinton White House years I was probably about the age you are now, Liza. Maybe this has much to do with our own state of being and becoming, as comparing who lets each of us down the worst? Maybe it's part of each woman's journey to encounter, as she matures through her 30s and 40s, that one oh-so-promising politician she believed could change the world but then makes her finally despair and face the need to let the prince fantasy go, the fairy-tale wish that even a good-looking, smooth-talking electable liberal can be our feminist savior and protector . . .

p.s. - And that doesn't mean we should judge a candidate by his wife these days, or elect his wife instead! It means we cannot be saved by any candidate so why work for them instead of working for ourselves, building what we need directly through NGOs, for example? It means this is not about who we elect anymore, if it ever really was . . .