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Opinion: A vote for Hillary, but she must keep promises

When my 40-year-old daughter was a precocious kindergartener, her teacher praised her to my husband and me, saying she could be the first woman president of the United States. I said, don't you mean the fifth woman president of the United States?

I did not vote for Hillary Clinton in this year's Pennsylvania primary. I did not vote for her in 2008, either. But when, in Tuesday night's DNC video, she said, "you're next" to little girls who had stayed up late to watch, this old feminist (Clinton and I are nearly the same age) got a little teary. When I was their age, the idea of a woman president would have been simply outlandish. In November, I will vote to make it happen.

"I'm with Her," yes, but not with the intense enthusiasm of so many other women my age. I disagree with her on many of her foreign-policy positions, on her less-than-enthusiastic support for financial regulations and her delayed opposition to the TPP trade deal. If she is elected, I fully expect to support politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in holding Clinton accountable for the promises she has made and pressuring her to take more progressive stands than she's inclined to.

I met her once, in 1993, when she came in to talk to the Daily News editorial board about her health-care plan. A co-worker had brought her two young daughters to wave to her. Clinton stopped to say hi and one of the little girls promptly demonstrated how she could curl her tongue, a talent she had recently discovered. Hillary remarked that Chelsea, then in the eighth grade, had been studying genetic traits in school, and among them was the ability to curl one's tongue. And then the first lady of the United States did just that: She curled her tongue. She was at ease, quite unselfconscious, not afraid of looking silly. In a word, authentic.

So I have never found it hard to believe that, in person, Hillary Clinton is as warm and funny and generous as the people who have known her and worked with her over the years say she is. To me, it's not that important, but then again, I haven't been the intended audience for decades of vicious propaganda.
That day in the office was only a few years before Hillary Hate became a thing, but she already had gotten off on the wrong foot with a lot of women. During Bill's 1992 campaign, an opponent suggested that her working for the biggest law firm in Little Rock caused a conflict of interest. The subtext: The little woman should not have been the family's major breadwinner while her husband made $35,000 as governor of Arkansas.

"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas," she said, "but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession."

So dumb; it sounded as if she was dissing women who stayed home to raise their children. But as President Bill reminded us, fulfilling her profession translated into improvements in the lives of children that would last long after cookies turned stale.

And she did, in the then-new field of child advocacy, with equal access to public school for children with disabilities, in early childhood education, in rape crisis centers.

While a lot of bankers and generals and members of the business establishment have had her ear over the years, so have thousands of ordinary Americans. And like President Obama said, she is more qualified to run for president than any man in generations, maybe ever. That counts for something.

Millions of Americans are, indeed, "Ready for Hillary," but millions more are not. Just as a black First Family living in the White House has profoundly transformed our view of what is possible in our democracy, it has also driven some people quite mad. Just as many will rejoice at this latest barrier being breached, others will freak out.

Hillary Hate will reach new heights. As her opponent would put it, you won't believe how coarse and ugly it's going to be. Still, if we have her back — but also get in her face to make sure she keeps her promises — a woman in charge will change some things forever.

I do hope that Hillary Clinton is wrong about one thing, though. I hope that one of those little girls watching at home isn't the next woman president. By the time she's old enough to run, she ought to be, if not the fifth president, at least the third or fourth.

Carol Towarnicky is a member of the Daily News editorial board. E-mail her at towarnc@phillynews.com.