I have seen the notion bandied about daily kos a good deal that various Kossacks protest their eagerness that a woman should be president of the United States. Their only regret is that the woman who actually has a chance to be president of the United States is Hillary Clinton. I have to wonder what such Kossacks imagine a woman who should be president would look like?
I have seen a long parade of names of women various people think ought to be president, and I deeply admire each of the women on that list. Among the names I seen thrown about are Governor Sebelius, Senator Boxer, and Speaker Pelosi. If any one of these women were running for president and were the frontrunner in the Democratic Party, I would be eager to embrace her candidacy. None of them is running, and it is highly unlikely that any of them, at least this year, would enjoy the kind of support Hillary Clinton receives.
That ought to tell us something about what the country seeks in a president and why so many Americans appear ready to embrace this woman as the first woman president. This is not an accident. There is a definite reason why Hillary Clinton is the first woman in American history with an excellent chance to be president. It is because she has characteristics that make it possible for enough Americans to imagine this woman as president. They can imagine Hillary as president, and Hillary happens to be a woman.
The nebulous notion that it would be nice to have a woman president detached from flesh and blood is like those polls that run generic Democrats against generic Republicans. It’s make believe. Reality is flesh and blood and fought out in the trenches. There is no "generic woman" running for president; there is this woman, Hillary Clinton, and she is the one who makes it possible for the first time for a vast number of Americans to imagine a woman as president.