Democratic Convention Mini-Posts: Day Two

This election cycle, the Democratic Party's National Convention aligns with the beginning of my semester. While I wish I could write more extensive pieces, I suspect I will have to limit myseff to shorter reactions and impressions of what I see and hear.

Today is an important anniversary. It is Women's Equality Day. Today, we honor and celebrate women finally winning the right to vote in national elections in 1920. The winning of that right, too long withheld, was no small achievement. It was done in the face of stiff opposition by those who believed that women were physically and mentally beneath men. Women were considered children.

Tonight, we will see one of two things: With the exception of Nancy Pelosi, the most important woman in the Democratic Party is giving the big speech at the Democratic National Convention. She will either inspire our party or wound our party. 

The challenge before her is, like that of the women who won the right to vote, is to show that she is not a child and that she can accept her defeat with the dignity and and poise that she has shown time and again in the past.

This will be no small achievement. Like her, I have lost elections and had to stand in public and be mature in front of the press when part of me wanted to hide or lash out. When I had to face that challenge, it was only in front of a local audience. People in Monroe, Union County, and throughout the greater Charlotte area watched my name flash up on their televisions -- in last place. Nevertheless, they universally said how proud they were and how much in awe they were that I got out there and ran.

Now she will have to do the same thing with the world watching.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am, like those people who spoke to me, in awe of what Senator Clinton did in her campaign. I watched her, clearly tired, keep moving and reaching out to those who were considering voting for her. I watched her make her pitch that she was the best candidate for the job. I am sure, in her heart of hearts, she still believes that.

If she wishes to remain merely a politician, she can damn Obama with faint praise or praise him well but drag her feet once the campaign leaves Denver. If she wishes to become the exemplar of something new on the American political scene -- the stateswoman -- is the real question tonight.

I have no doubt that she can do it. I desperately hope she will do it.

I must admit to a certain bias in this hope. It is not because of my preference for Obama. I believe she would be a fine president and, if she won, would have been proud to cast my vote for her.

The reason I want her to prove herself a stateswoman is because there is a good chance that my one year old daughter will be in the room when she speaks -- much like I was when the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon. I desperately want to be able to tell her that she was there and watching when Clinton gave the speech that inspired a new generation of women -- her generation of women -- to reach higher than they ever have before and believe that there is no job, no office, and no dream to great for them.

Senator Hillary Clinton has the opportunity tonight to prove that the American Dream is equally accessible to both halves of the country. I am looking forward to watching her do it.