Oh, don’t get me wrong. I think it is a positive thing that either Obama or Hillary is in the front running, and is worthy of remark. In fact, what I would like to see is the two of the end up on the same ticket. As Mrs. Q points out, the likelihood of that happening is low because “there needs to be a Southern Democrat on the ticket somewhere”, which is where Edwards comes in. Personally, I don’t think people give Hillary enough credit for her political savvy. They consider her the wife of a former President. There just aren’t a lot of women in Washington as compared to men. Nancy Pelosi being the Speaker of the House, for example, received more comments in the news media her first two months in office about her wardrobe than her politics (I gleaned that from “The Atlantic” a couple issues back).

But I digress. Yes, Obama winning the primary is definitely worthy of note!

MJ: China has only very recently risen to be a world power (in same sense that Spain was in the 1400’s or England in the 1800’s or the US today) like in the last 50 years. Previous to that, it could be strongly argued that China was very isolationist, even if large. But even with that, there was Madame Sun Yat-sen, and a number of Empresses and Empress Dowagers in their very long history as a nation.

Responding to CoryQ, and this really doesn’t hurt your argument any, but has China ever had a woman in charge? I mean, they’re clearly a major world power and everything…

No, I don’t think that’s the right interpretation. It means that the state of Iowa (which is presumably roughly half female) favored a black man over that particular woman. There are lots of people I wouldn’t support for President (or dog catcher, for that matter) quite independent of their gender, skin color, or shoe size; competency does matter. What’s reassuring about Obama’s result is that the majority of those at Iowa’s Democratic caucus considered him the most competent (in one sense or another) despite the fact that his skin color was manifestly different from theirs. In a country like the U.S. where skin color (and its perception) has played such a profound and debilitating role in our history, I think this is a remarkable event (in the sense of being worthy of remark).

That said, it would also have been remarkable if Clinton had taken the day for the reason you gave and minor variations of the reasons I gave regarding Obama. If either of them succeed in taking the Oval Office it will be a watershed event in American history for different, but related, reasons.

There is another catch to this: It still means that the American people aren’t willing to elect a woman president. That makes the US the only major world power to never have a woman in charge.

There are several corallaries worthy of discussion here, but I have a full plate at work today so I will leave folks to ponder it out for themselves.