Cross-posted at Daily Kos
The press hasn't noted it, so I thought I should write a diary to celebrate that a first has occurred in the history of our republic. An event without precedent in American history, a woman has won a primary in the nominating process for her party. The woman who shattered that glass ceiling, of course, is none other than Hillary Clinton.
The historical nature of the Democratic primaries this year has been lost on none of us. A woman, a Latino, and an African American have offered themselves to the Democratic electorate as candidates for the nomination of our party; indeed, even after the Iowa caucuses, all three still were standing and advanced to contest the New Hampshire primary.
We cannot minimize the historical significance of Barack Obama's win in the Iowa caucuses, but even so, he was not the first African American to see electoral success in the nominating process. That honor, of course, goes to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. In 1984, when he ran for president, Jackson won five primaries and caucuses, including Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi. Jackson repeated that success in 1988 when he won 11 contests: seven primaries in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and four caucuses in Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont. Obama's accomplishment in Iowa, of course, reflects the fact that he has led us as a nation to credit him as a very serious contender for the presidency when we failed as a nation to not similarly credit Jackson as a serious contender when he, in fact, was one.
But let's look in context at what has happened in New Hampshire. About half of all Americans are women, but the republic is well into its third century when a woman finally has accomplished what Hillary Clinton achieved on Tuesday. The nation was still in its first century in 1872 when the first woman ran for president: Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, publisher, and protégé of Cornelius Vanderbilt, ran for president of the United States on the Equal Rights Party ticket. Twelve years later in 1884, Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to practice law before the U.S Supreme Court, ran on the same ticket and ran once again in 1888.
In the nineteenth century, however, states did not prepare ballots; parties did. It was not until 1964 that any woman appeared on a ballot that a state prepared. Between 1964 and 2004, 22 women were on the ballot in Democratic primaries and 14 ran in Republican primaries. The names of many of these 36 women are legendary: Shirley Chisholm, Margaret Chase Smith, Pat Schroeder, Patsy Mink, Elizabeth Dole, and Carol Mosely Braun are among them.
Never before in our republic has a woman won a presidential primary. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not just making history. With her win in the New Hampshire primary, she already has become a name for the record books.
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