Please don't tell me that race and gender "shouldn't matter." The fact is, they do.

[pnwmom]

They have ALWAYS mattered -- the unwritten but unbroken rule has been that only a white non-Hispanic male could be President. Or even Vice-President.

Women weren’t even given the vote across the U.S. until 1920 – less than 100 years ago. And today women comprise only 16 of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate, less than a fifth of the House, and only one of the nine members of the Supreme Court.

Never, in the history of the U.S., have we ever had more than two women on the Supreme Court or a single woman or non-white man EVER in the White House, as President or Vice President.

We’re not so enlightened, so tolerant, that we’re beyond issues of race and gender. So let’s not pretend that we are.

If either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected, we will have taken a major step forward as a nation.