This just in: Barack Obama is NOT the first Hawai'i-born Dem candidate for President.

[KamaAina]

I'm SERIES!!!111!1111!1 That'd be Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Congressional rep for many years who is perhaps best known as the mother of Title IX mandating gender equality in education, including athletics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy_Mink#Hawai.CA.BBi_politics

In 1956 as the Territory of Hawaiʻi debated statehood, Mink was elected to the territorial legislature representing her district in the House of Representatives. In 1959, Hawaiʻi became the 50th state of the Union. In 1965, Mink became the first female minority to join the ranks of Congress. She served six consecutive terms. During the 1972 Presidential race, Mink ran in the Oregon primary as an anti-war candidate.

A truly remarkable woman, this: after WWII, she was admitted to the U. of Chicago law school under their foreign student quota!!

In case you're wondering, Patsy received 2% of the vote in the Oregon primary.



edit: caps, plus: where were the proto-Freepers screeching about her being born in a territory rather than a state?

[Drunken Irishman]

1. But he'll be the first Hawaii-born president!

[opihimoimoi]

2. He will make Hawaii proud as heck....

awesome

[happyslug]

3. To my knowledge only three Candidates for President had a lawyer for a spouse

All were Democrats. Obama is #3 (Remember I am talking CANDIDATES so she qualifies NOW), Clinton was #2, William Jennings Bryan was the First, in 1896. All Democrats. Democratic Candidates are NOT afraid of strong women in their lives, unlike the GOP whose spouses were all housewives, some had Collage Degrees but to my knowledge no advance Degrees or admittance into any profession (In 1896 the practice was NOT to go to Law School but to be admitted by the local and State Court, Mrs Jennings did attend some class on law, unlike most of the lawyers of her time period, but had already graduated Collage, unlike many lawyers of her time period).

It is hard to compare people of different time period, today the practice is to go to Law School and then be admitted to Practice, till about WWII, that remain possible. It is only after WWII that it became rare for Lawyers NOT to have graduated from a Law school (Almost impossible after 1950) but Mrs Bryan had attended Law Classes and was admitted into the Bar, an achievement for her time period. From what I gather she did NOT practice but was as active as her husband in the various reform movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[KamaAina]

4. Oh, come on. Pickles has a master's in library science.

unlike the GOP whose spouses were all housewives, some had Collage Degrees but to my knowledge no advance Degrees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bush#Early_life_and_career

In 1973, Welch attained a Master of Science degree in Library Science from the University of Texas at Austin. She was soon employed as a librarian at the Kashmere Gardens Branch at the Houston Public Library. The following year, she moved back to Austin and took another job as a librarian in the Austin Independent School District school Dawson Elementary until 1977. She reflected upon her employment experiences to a group of children in 2003, saying, "I worked as a teacher and librarian and I learned how important reading is in school and in life."

Of course, she gave up her librarian job after she got her "M.R.S. degree":

She met George W. Bush in 1977 at a backyard barbecue at the home of mutual friends, John and Jan O'Neill. After a three-month courtship, he proposed to her and they were married on November 5 of that year at the First United Methodist Church in Midland, the same church in which she had been baptized. The couple did not have a honeymoon.