It's the right time for Hillary

I awoke this morning to dh saying, "Hillary Clinton is running for president."

It is about time. We need Hillary Clinton in the White House.

Not because she is Bill Clinton's wife. But because she is an intelligent, articulate statesman with international credibility who has the unique, intimate perspective of what life is like as president. That is critical if we are going to re-establish our nation's international credibility.

And not because she is a woman, although it is exciting that we have a woman candidate who has such strong qualifications. And because, in many ways, she is much more the real face of America than we have seen in a long time.

She is a woman from a Midwestern, middle class family who went to one of the top schools in the country because she wanted to be a lawyer. She was a Goldwater Republican who became a southern Democrat. With the centrist sensibility present in our society today, she is all that.

She has already survived the intense scrutiny of federal prosecutors and unprecendented attacks to her character by a partisan Congress while First Lady. She has had her private life played out in the press, and has faced down political skepticism about her suitability as a Senate candidate. Not many of us have faced that, but how would our lives look if they were played out in the press?

She has been a working mother who has worked hard to balance work and family. While the myth of the one-income household with the father earning the money and the mother staying home to care for the household and the school-age children, that is not the reality. The face of the American woman is more likely single, often a single parent, and a lower-class to middle-class income. We think we want Cinderella for the First Lady, but we are really more like Belle.

Hillary Clinton has what it takes to be president.