Image via NewYorker.com

Source: NewYorker.com

Forget her accomplishments as a U.S. Senator!  Nevermind all that talk about helping women and children around the world!  Hillary is bringing back the headband!  Women in their 60s with long hair!  WOO-HOO!

OK, no headband here, but her hair rocks. Image via www.state.gov

I don’t know about you, but I’m loving the blonder, longer hair the Secretary of State is sporting these days. As a woman closer in age to Hillary than Chelsea, I may just try that myself!

Of course, Clinton had to know that, having been mocked once in her life for being an adult woman who wore a headband, that there’d be plenty of discussion of it this time, too. The funny thing, though, is she’s totally in the style moment — fashionistas LOVED the look on Michelle Williams at the Golden Globes!

But aside from the headband, why are we so fascinated with  Hillary’s hair?   She’s got a ponytail!  Now it’s in a bun! Hey, did she get a blow-out? I hate to break it to the Hillary fashion haters, but sometimes a girl’s just got to mix it up a little bit.  Maybe she can sport this little leopard number for her next news conference?

Maybe her critics are afraid if the focus on what she actually does rather than how she styles her hair, they’d have to admit she’s a woman to be taken seriously.

While her progress has been nothing short of remarkable, Giffords has announced that she will resign from her Arizona congressional seat after the President’s State of the Union address, allowing her to focus on her ongoing physical recovery.

In a video released this weekend, speaking much more clearly than in the TV interview she did with her husband Mark Kelly in November, Giffords said her decision was the best one for her and her constituents. She thanked supporters for their prayers, saying, “I have more work to do on my recovery, so [stepping down was] best for Arizona,” rather than waiting until her re-election filing deadline in May.

One of Giffords’ best friends, U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, commented on Giffords’ decision on her own congressional website:

“Gabby has had such a positive impact on our nation. Even in announcing her resignation, she reminds us that ‘we can do so much more by working together.’ We will miss Gabby’s spirit in Congress and I will miss working with my friend day-to-day, but I am confident that she will return to public service and we can all work together for America.”

Giffords did tip her hat about her future in her video, saying that she “will return.” It’s hard to know what that means, but Giffords’ best Capitol Hill friends Wasserman Schultz and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York have been holding fundraisers for Giffords potential future campaigns since the shooting, giving her the option of getting back into a world where a candidate needs money, as well as voter support, to win.

Giffords’ shooting prompted lawmakers to attend last year’s State of the Union address with a “date” from the opposite political party in the spirit of bipartisanship, so it’s heartening to see that Giffords will be attending this year’s event to further promote her desire for more across the aisle efforts.  As she continues her recovery, I can only hope that at least a few members of each political party will take that bipartisan moment to heart.

The original version of this post was written for iVillage.com, where I’ll be working on 2012 election coverage through November!

Image via Boris Rasin via Wikimedia/Creative Commons license

There is just TOO much going on in the world of presidential politics to weigh in on all the pundit-y goodness that could surely fill pages of this site!  But what’s a girl to do when the whole world of Republican politics looks like it’s turning upside down?  I was all set to have a quiet ‘catch up on E-mails’ kind of day when all hell broke loose:

1. Rick Perry is dropping out of the 2012 presidential race,

2. Rick Santorum has now been declared the winner of the Iowa Caucuses after a recount followed the apparent Mitt Romney win by eight votes,

3. ABC News supposedly has a tell-all interview with Mrs. Newt Gingrich number2 in which she will dish on all the reasons Newt isn’t fit to be president (other than the obvious thing about being a serial cheater),

4. Mitt “I’m unemployed just like you” Romney has millions in offshore investments.  And you know why people and corporations make offshore investments — to avoid paying taxes in the U.S.!

5. And some people think it might have been God’s will that Michelle Bachmann came in last in the Iowa caucuses.

Ron Paul must be beside himself with glee.

Now, no one should EVER count their chickens in politics or press their luck until the fat lady really has started singing, but if I were President Obama’s campaign team, I might be thinking about breaking out one of the cheaper bottles of champagne. (Gotta save the good stuff for November!)

Image via www.state.gov/secretary/

Poor Hillary Clinton. She never gets a break when it comes to the political rumor mill. Will she run against President Obama in 2012? Did she say she wanted to retire from being Secretary of State in a second-term Obama administration because she wants to make plans for a White House run in 2016? Maybe she has another reality-type show in the works?

The latest “will she or won’t she moment” that some are wishing for is a swap out in the current administration — move Vice President Joe Biden to the State Department and put Hillary on the ticket with the President for a new and improved 2012 race! Pundits who are suggesting that this could happen see it as a win/win/win scenario – Biden gets the job he’s supposedly really always wanted, Hillary helps Barack Obama win a second term, and Hillary has a launching pad for a 2016 White House contest.

I can almost hear the Howard Dean-like hooting and hollering of some Democrats now over that scenario!

But the problem is this. The former First Lady/U.S. Senator hasn’t given even one little inkling that she could be persuaded to sign on to that scenario. In 2010, she said, “I think I’ll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children.” And in 2011, she was even more emphatic that a presidential bid wasn’t in her future — no, no, NO!

There is only one thing certain in politics – if there’s no real news going on, prognosticators will come up with something to grab our attention. And what better way to do that as we are begging for the Republican debates to finally be over than to spend a little time wondering whether Hillary has been harboring secret presidential fantasies since 2008?

Those who are stirring the pot on this one are forgetting that even though Secretary of State Clinton is wildly popular now, she was the target of unending attacks from a wide variety of political commentators during her campaign, even some of the ones who liked her. And are our collective political memories so short that proponents of an Obama/HRC ticket can’t see that the Republicans would have a field day with political ads talking about Obamacare AND Hillary-care? If Mitt Romney is the destined GOP candidate, he’s already on the record questioning her health care ideas from the 1990s. The Republican attack ads about a “socialist” Obama/Clinton ticket would be on the air before you could say, “What time is the next bus to Chappaqua?”

Even if the President wanted to trade Joe Biden for another vice president, Obama and his advisers know that has disaster written all over it.

It’s probably a good bet that Hillary Clinton, when she retires from her job as Secretary of State, won’t be hanging out at the local yarn store looking for baby bootie patterns. She’s made it clear that she’s committed to working on issues that impact women and girls globally. How better to do that than take a page from husband’s playbook and become an international ambassador for those issues? She’s seen that Bill Clinton’s star hasn’t faded and that the role of stateswoman who doesn’t need to worry about voters or political attacks could be pretty darn appealing

Sure, seeing Hillary Clinton on a road that could lead her to the Oval Office is a fantasy I’d like to indulge. But at some point every girl has to sit back, put her feet up and do something that’s just a little easier than wrangling with Syria. One thing I would bet money on is a Hillary Clinton-run Super PAC to get more women elected. After all, I hear some people are talking about Michelle Obama running for U.S. Senate from Illinois after 2016!

A version of this post was originally written for iVillage.com, where I’ll be working on election coverage through November 2012!

Image via WhiteHouse.org/Pete Souza

Happy birthday, Michelle Obama! Turning 48?  Hey, you’re still just a youngster! You know what they say — 48 is the new 28.

If you’re even a little bit like me, though, at 48 you see can see that big 5-0 staring you pretty clearly in the face. Don’t think about that right now. Give some thought to what you’d really like for a birthday treat. That might be hard to focus on after getting so upset about that whole “angry black woman” thing, but go ahead – it’s your birthday. Indulge!

I know you have enough clothes in your wardrobe, both for your fitness routines and in the designer category. I hear you can go pretty much anywhere you like on Air Force One, and you already have a few people to help out with the cleaning and the laundry. I’m assuming with the 2012 campaign in full swing, the President probably isn’t going to be heading out to Tiffany a la Newt Gingrich to get you anything this year, but I have four ideas about how you might enjoy your day:

Plan a getaway with the girls. I don’t mean Valerie Jarrett or your Chief of Staff, though I’m sure they’re lovely women. We already know you can sneak off to undetected Target or PetSmart. So I bet you could probably do the same for a couple of days to unwind with a gal pal or two, maybe hang out around the pool with a glass of white wine? OK, so maybe I’m projecting a little bit about what would be on my birthday wish list, but what high-profile woman couldn’t use a little time away?

If you can’t get away, then do the exact opposite. Head down to the White House theater, order up some snacks from the White House chef and hunker down with a reality show marathon. I know you might not admit it, but we all have a favorite guilty pleasure when it comes to the world of reality television. I know you’ve been a guest on one yourself, but I think a little time with something with a little less social value could help you enjoy the day. If you have a hard time choosing, I can messenger over a couple of complete seasons of Project Runway from the PunditMom viewing library.

Take an online course. No one will know it’s you. You can interact with some “real” people and cultivate one of your long lost hobbies. A little imagination is all it takes to come up with a faux identity and new Gmail account. I know I’m enjoying a nice photography inspiration class at the moment. Or you could try out this one to figure out whether you really want to run for Senate in 2016.

And of course, I think you need a copy of my book, Mothers of Intention. If you’re going to have to focus on getting women on board for your husband’s re-election campaign, I think you might find some good background here. Plus, some people have said it’s a great read!

So don’t worry about the whole almost-50 thing at the moment.  Remember, your husband was the one who had the mid-life crisis, so you don’t need to to that.  And just remember that 53 is the new 33.  I speak from experience on this one.

I know that’s not really news, but it’s good to have someone do a study about this sort of thing just to remind us that the more things change (there are more women in elective office today than a couple of decades ago), the more things stay the same (the numbers haven’t changed all that much in the last decade).  There are still only 17 women in the Senate and only 17% percent of the seats on the House of Representatives are held by women.

Talk about a glass ceiling.

Yes, I know a few people who are trying to change the dynamic of political conversation.  But female political representation is actually down and fewer women are running for elective office, even though every election cycle these days gets touted as a “year of the woman.”

The just-released report that looks at the state of things for political women is called “Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics,” authored by the same academics who brought us the book,  It Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office.

Here are the seven reasons contained in the report for why men still rule the political world:

1. Women are more likely than men to perceive the electoral environment as highly competitive and biased against female candidates,

2. Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s candidacies aggravated women’s perceptions of gender bias in the electoral arena,

3. Women are much less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office,

4. Female potential candidates are less competitive, less confident, and more risk averse than their male counterparts,

5. Women react more negatively than men to many aspects of modern campaigns,

6. Women are less likely than men to receive the suggestion to run for office – from anyone, and

7. Women are still responsible for the majority of childcare and household tasks.

Do any of these surprise you?  I certainly didn’t fall off my chair when I read them.  Now, I’m a big fan of the whole ‘women should rule the world’ idea, but I also recognize the fact that it would be nice to accomplish that without all the name-calling and family-bashing and, let’s just say it, lying that goes on in the world of politics, especially when it’s played out on the big stage.  Who can blame women, or men for that matter, for wanting the steer clear if the mean-spirited vitriol that is political standard operating procedure?

One of the main reasons I quit practicing law was because I was tired of the uncountable number of lawyers (mostly men, I must say) who refused to play nicely and by the rules, and who would try every dirty trick in the book, including personal attacks, to win their cases.  So I can’t imagine making my life worse than it was then to run for office.

Life is just to short for that crap.  And while I am a political junkie and will write about it and analyze the world of political goings-on, I will never run for office because I’d never subject my family to it.  It makes me wonder why men are OK with letting their families suffer.  There are many organizations dedicated to convincing women to step up and run for office.  I admire that and I acknowledge that we won’t be able to create a political environment we want until more women are ready to jump into the fray.  I just don’t see that happening until things are a little more civil in the political world.

My good friend Karen was recently sort of begging people to step up and do something about this.  I certainly hear what she’s saying.   But I’m not holding my breath that we’ll see more women jumping into the political arena in my lifetime.  Unless I live to be about 150, that is.

Image via JodiKantor.net

The just-released, best-selling book “The Obamas“  written by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor is getting a lot of push back from the White House in connection with her reporting of Mrs. Obama’s interactions with the President’s staff and her portrayal of the ups and downs of the Obama family’s adjustments to White House life.  Michelle Obama has been quite vocal about the fact that she is not too happy with how she is portrayed, saying that she’s not “an angry black woman.”

After reading the book, I’m surprised that the White House isn’t embracing this account, especially with regard to the portrayal of Mrs. Obama.  No, she’s not what we might call a traditional First Lady — it’s clear that she feels confident enough in herself as an educated, professional woman that she can express her views and concerns to her staff, as well as to the President’s.  I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Jodi Kantor’s account is an in-depth look at the Obama family’s White House evolution and the growing pains that all First Families surely must go through. Kantor’s book paints a picture of a family with a shared sense of mission coming to terms with the public dissection of what were once a private conversations and moments.  And no, Mrs. Obama does not come across as a wallflower or timid presidential spouse.  She is clearly someone comfortable with talking about how certain issues and decisions impact the goals that the Obamas have for their tenure in Washington.  For anyone to suggest that this is a new thing in the world of First Ladies is either uninformed or just plain disingenuous.

Kantor had unprecedented access to the East Wing of the White House and Mrs. Obama’s staff.  In addition to many interviews she conducted “on background” — meaning she could quote what people said, but not identify them by name — as well as the on the record conversations she had with some of Mrs. Obama’s closest confidantes, it’s hard to criticize her reporting, even though it seems like the White House is trying.

So what does the author make of all this attention – good and bad – for a book she’s worked on for years? I caught up with Kantor, who also happens to be a busy mom of a six-year-old daughter, to get her thoughts on White House marriages, the notoriety she’s received for the book, and who she was really writing it for.

Q: Why do you think we’re fascinated with the marriages of First Couples?

A: I think we’re interested in seeing transitions from a private marriage to what [inevitably] becomes something of a super-marriage. Conversations First Couples had before arriving at the White House were interactions that always remained private. Once a couple moves into the White House, all those personal, private debates become public.

Q: What made you want to write this book?

A: I was inspired to write “The Obamas” partly because many women [who were Hillary Clinton supporters in 2008] came up to me while I was covering that that campaign and said there just weren’t enough stories about women and politics that speak to us [as women.] Some of my friends have often wondered why certain stories about family life in the White House don’t make headlines. I was also inspired by the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, “No Ordinary Time” that portrayed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt as true political partners. I liked that “No Ordinary Time” gave equal time to each of their stories.

I also wanted to write a book that showed how White House families evolve and change over time. That’s difficult to do in day-to-day news coverage. But I thought it would be interesting to write a book that would illustrate how a first couple changes and transforms, showing the readers that the people they meet at the beginning of the book aren’t the same at the end. Both of the Obamas learned how to cope with certain frustrations and difficulties [of White House life]. I think those lessons of growth are very powerful.

Q: Do you think people would respond differently to some of the stories about Michelle Obama if they were about a “First Husband?”

A: First Ladyhood won’t change until we elect our first woman president. Once we have a First ‘Gent’ – a role that will come with no preconceived expectations – it will be easier for subsequent First Ladies to change what that role can be. The first First Lady we have after the first woman president will be a lucky woman!

Q: How do you feel about the criticism the book is receiving for what some see as a portrayal of Michelle Obama as an “angry black woman?”

A: I’m surprised that some people perceive an “angry back woman” undercurrent in the book. I was very careful to write the book in a way that I thought moved beyond stereotypes, which I’ve tried to do my other writing about the Obamas.

Q: When I read and heard some of the book’s reviews, I wondered why there was little about parenting in the White House. Then as I read your book, it became clear that you do address that throughout, including a whole chapter dedicated to that topic!

A: Yes, I really wanted to address that part of the Obamas’ lives and [as a mother myself] write the book for an audience that I really wanted to speak to – women and mothers. But I also wanted to write about how parenting [in a fishbowl] has impacted the lives of all their family. For example, I shared what I thought was a [relatable] parenting story in the book about the time the President was speaking about education initiatives and announced nationally that he had been disappointed that Malia had received a score of only 73 on a test. She got really mad at her dad and he apologized to her later for that.

Kantor and I agreed we could have talked for hours on the parenting aspects of the Obamas’ story, as well as what women would really like to see from other women in politics. Fingers crossed we get to have that conversation soon.

A version of this post was originally written for iVillage.com, where I’ll be working on 2012 election coverage this year!

Image via Amazon.com

I wasn’t lucky enough to get an early peek at “The Obamas,” the just-released book about the First Couple and their family, how they’ve fared living inside the Washington, D.C beltway, and the impact their experiences have had on their personal lives. (I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive via my Amazon Prime account!) The advance reviews of the new book by New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor suggest that it’s a compelling read, with lots of inside information about the First Family’s struggles, both personally and professionally. But some critics are wondering how much is fact and how much is Kantor’s spin, in light of the fact that she hasn’t interviewed the Obamas themselves since 2009.

The aspect I’m looking forward to most is what this book will tell us about Michelle Obama and her behind-the-scenes influence as First Lady. Not because I’m a voyeur, but because the story of how an accomplished professional woman used to speaking her own mind and being in control of her own destiny, who suddenly finds that way of life yanked out from under her, will resonate in numerous ways with many working women. Clearly the usual “work/life” balance issues so many of us juggle pale in comparison to what Michelle Obama has had to adjust to, but it sounds like the revelations about the impact that White House living has had on her life and marriage paint a picture of a woman trying to maintain her identity and voice, while navigating the dangerous political waters of being perceived as over-stepping the traditional role of a White House wife.

As a woman who came of age at about the same time as Mrs. Obama, that’s a story I want to read.

One review written by journalist and political spouse Connie Schultz remarks that it was clear from Kantor’s reporting that, “Mrs. Obama struggled with her changed role — in the world at large but also in her family. It was impossible to take her girls to school, or sometimes even attend their soccer matches, without embarrassing them with the accompanying ruckus. She also felt new limitations in her marriage — imposed, not by the president, but by his presidency. An accomplished professional, smart and wickedly funny, she was used to being Mr. Obama’s partner. Now his day was scheduled in five-minute increments, and she was abruptly recast as his helpmate.”

It can’t be easy to go from a life where friends and family can come and go at will to one where everyone has to be vetted by the Secret Service. How many of us would be upset if we were forced to switch our routine from being a regular at our children’s schools and soccer games to one of having to forgo a major part of our kids’ lives because of the security disruptions? And then, on top of that, how would any of us fare with having to navigate the waters of being a first among first couples, as the Obamas are as the first African-American First Family?

Even before the book was released, the White House denounced many of the accounts of Michelle Obama’s policy influence and frustrations with the President’s staff as mere gossip. But Kantor told the TODAY Show that she had access to “top aides, close friends,” and Mrs. Obama’s East Wing staff, who shared many of the stories in her book. Kantor has spent years making herself an expert on the Obamas, their life together, who they are as individuals and how they relate to one another. In the world of narrative non-fiction, it’s the job of the writer to make observations and draw logical conclusions based on those facts. That’s what we expect from writers of compelling non-fiction books. Without that, their stories would nothing more than dry timelines.

Schultz says in her New York Times review — “In lesser hands ‘The Obamas’ would be an act of astonishing overreach, but Ms. Kantor … has earned the voice of authority. A meticulous reporter, Ms. Kantor is attuned to the nuance of small gestures, [and] the import of unspoken truths.” And isn’t that the kind of book we all want to read? One that gives us insight and perspective into a story that’s more than just an account on the evening news?

A version of this post was written for iVillage, where I’m helping to head up the sites 2012 election coverage.

Image via iStockPhoto/Daniel Deitschel

In just a few hours, the caucusing for both Republicans and Democrats will start in Iowa, officially kicking off the 2012 presidential primary season.  I have no doubt it’s going to be a long and bumpy road between now and November.

There’s been a lot of chatter on the talking head shows about Iowa for many weeks as the polls gauging the the frontrunners seem to change almost hourly.  For some down-to-earth perspective on things in Iowa, check out my post wondering about whether the Iowa Caucuses really deserve all the hoopla they receive.

But don’t just listen to me!  There are two excellent pieces over at my new group venture that is an online magazine of the best women’s commentary from around the web, The Broad Side: Real Women. Real Opinions.

Broad Side contributor and former syndicated columnist Marie Cocco writes about Predictable Iowa Portends Tough Obama Re-election Road.

Broad Side guest contributor Sonia Walsh reminisces about her Iowa Caucus experience four years ago, and why she thinks the process is a good one.

And Heather Barmore at Poliogue blog reminds us that there are some important things missing in Iowa that we’re not talking about in her piece, Caucus Eve.

Who else is writing about Iowa in way that resonates with you more than the usual suspects on the cable news shows?