The XX Factor: What women really think.

Hillary's Moonstruck Moment

Hillary's Cinderella Moment

I thought Hillary did a great job tonight. I liked how enthusiastic she seemed about Obama and the Democratic Party generally. She didn't have that extreme tightness she gets in her face sometimes when she's saying things she clearly doesn't believe. And Melinda, you're totally right that she pumped up Obama by delivering a healthy dose of old-fashioned motherly chiding: "Did you get all energized just for me, or did you care also about the young marine, or the single mother with cancer raising children?" (to paraphrase).  It was the best kind of guilt trip, one that's less about the guilt than about restoring you to your original sense of mission. Still, I wish that she had been even more explicit than she was: for example, why not address the McCain ad head on and say, "Make no mistake: I expect my supporters to go out to go out and vote for Obama in November."

For, boy, did Hillary's speech not have an effect on the female Clinton-loving delegate CNN interviewed afterward, who was so focused on her own sense of loss she clearly didn't give two flying pigs about anyone else's. Cancer-ridden mother, be damned. This delegate cried, huffed, and puffed about the fact that Obama won the nomination; her partner's fingers kept creeping up onto her right shoulder in anxiety. She was so worked up that I felt puzzled watching her: Is there something wrong with me? Why don't I find Hillary's loss to Obama that upsetting? I consider myself a feminist, for God's sake. But I just don't see her loss as a blow to feminism, I suppose. After all, Hillary got further than many candidates do—including many male runners-up. I suppose you could say she has more experience than Obama and should clearly be our candidate, as this woman was arguing. But experience hasn't always won in the past. And the fact that it didn't this time doesn't mean that her gender is to blame. I guess I see the cup as half-full. I also can't bring myself to feel that the "PUMA" movement is at all useful in a feminist way; it seems like special pleading.

Though I did have that old twinge of excitement at seeing Hillary in the mix. And yes, Melinda, I loved that pumpkin suit! And the makeup! (Even though I felt guilty about noticing it. I rarely care how male politicians look—though I do find myself scanning Obama in similar ways. What's that about?) Meanwhile, I was so put off by CNN's relentless focus on "women" in the audience (punctuated by shots of Bill Clinton, who looked like a cat in the cream when his presidency was mentioned) that I distracted myself by reading some outlandish metaphors into Clinton's outfit: If she couldn't be Cinderella in this story, she'll be the pumpkin that's turned into a carriage, and she'll get Barack—her Cinderfella—to that inaugural ball. If only she can get her supporters to agree to this version of the fairy tale.

Clinton Code Orange

The fire-bright shade of orange Hillary picked to wear tonight must lie directly across the color wheel from the particular shade of punched-up blue that flanked the DNC podium. The contrast couldn't have been sharper. And I thought Hillary couldn't have been sharper, in her presentation, in her poise, in her tribute video. She was great. She just wasn't great for Barack Obama.

Here's where I felt it: "Were you in it for me?" she asked her supporters. "Or were you in it for" the young Marine, the mother struggling to make ends meet, etc. Good, that justified the minutes she'd just spent on real-people stories. Then I waited for the turn, for her to say: Because this election isn't about me. Now, it's about Barack Obama. He will make your lives better in the ways I wanted to do and would have done. Because he is ready to lead the American people. He will take us where we need to go. And now you need to be in this election for him, and so for yourselves.

OK, I don't have a future as a speech writer. But that was the mark she should have hit harder and didn't, wasn't it? She got close for a second with, "before we keep going, we've got to get going, by electing Barack Obama!" That was the kind of line she was up there to deliver. There should have been more of them. By the end, the orange was starting to look red to me, as in Scarlet O'Hara red--the bright color you wear to the party you had to be brave to come to. Dahlia, you said that Michelle Obama was brave last night. I thought that Hillary was brave tonight. But not, also, giving enough to hand to her former opponent everything he may need.

Listen to the Woman: "To My Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits ...''

Props to the lady in the electric pumpkin pantsuit. Because as Barack Obama's mama used to tell him, a little guilt is good for you. And Mama Hillary spelled that out again tonight, signaling to her people with all the subtlety of her bright orange outfit that if they want to leave her sitting home alone in the dark while they go running after that John McCain, well that's fine, no problem at all, really, because she's hardly done anything for them—other than work her heart out for 35 years. Oh, and it's only the FUTURE OF THE WORLD at stake: "I haven't spent the last 35 years in the trenches, advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights here at home and around the world, to see another Republican in the White House ... No way, no how, no McCain.'' Are we clear? "Were you in this campaign just for me?'' Nooooo, you were better than that, surely? "This won't be easy; progress never is. But it will be impossible unless we put a Democrat in the White House.'' Any questions? She was gracious to Michelle Obama, generous to Joe Biden and the first to lay a finger on John McCain: "In 2008, he still thinks it's OK that women don't earn equal pay ... With an agenda like that, it's no wonder George W. Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities next week; it's awfully hard to tell them apart ... We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare ...'' Case closed.