Blogging the Democratic National Convention This Week

Thanks to the MOMocrats for initiating this great project... I'm going to Denver today, covering the Democratic National Convention for several online publications (mostly blogs) including:

Sairy
BlogHer
MOMocrats
Obama HQ Blog
WomenCount Blog
FutureCampaigns Blog
Silicon Valley Moms Blog
Huffington Post - Off the Bus
The Political Voices of Women

I'll be spending time pretty much everywhere - at the convention itself, in the Big Tent, at the Unconventional Women event, the EMILY's List events, Youth delegation events, California events, New Democrats Network events, getting together with Emerge alumni, meeting people and of course partying. I'm particularly looking forward to the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash which looks to be a great way to kick back, and the Big Tent will be hopping I'm sure.

Follow the action via Twitter - sairy - and momocrats!

Women Bloggers vs. the New Boys' Club

When I was at BlogHer recently, there was a panel about how to be taken seriously as political bloggers. When asked at the beginning of the session what we wanted to get out of it, I said something about women being taken seriously as political bloggers in general, even knowing we probably didn't have time to really get into that. The moderator, Morra Aarons, replied in kind with something along the lines of how that could take us all day.

It seems someone from the New York Times was there. Kara Jesella put up a post a few days ago about the issue, called "Blogging's Glass Ceiling". Unfortunately the post was under the Fashion & Style section (part of the problem with women being taken seriously - often women's issues are lumped in there), but nevertheless, I'm happy the topic was written about, it's a good article, and she made some interesting points about the issue, delving farther into it than I have to date.

List of Women Leaders in Tech Politics Is Up!

I published a post earlier today that was a long time coming that lists many of the talented women working in the field of technology and politics at The Political Voices of Women, a blog launched in the past year by BlogHer and Care2 Contributing Editor, Catherine Morgan. The list I hope will become a living document like her list of what began as under 200 women bloggers who write about politics and now spans beyond 450.

BlogHer 2008

My friend, Glennia Campbell, has described the MOMocrats blog as "a conversation, not a shouting match" in reference to it being a collaborative environment for people to discuss policy vs. a heated, argumentative environment that the majority of political blogs can have and it struck me after being at BlogHer this week and talking to people who were simultaneously at Netroots Nation that the community we have really is special.

Not that I didn't already know this, but I'm continually learning new reasons why the BlogHer network is unique, so I wanted to highlight what I felt and what I heard from others about the conference and the BlogHer site and sister sites. It's not that these women don't hiss at each other online or get riled up about things we care about, but there's just an aura of cooperation and cordiality that I see more as a European advocacy style than American political discourse. When we meet in person, even if we disagree, we are pleasant and try to find common ground vs. seeking to one-up each other to score some imaginary points.

Coming to BlogHer for the second year, having worked on a few collaborative blogs and been out there in the blogosphere for a few years now was like a happy college reunion with just women - even women I'd never met who had read my work. Everyone is nice, everyone greets each other with hugs, people exchange genuine pleasantries vs. brushing each other off, and they take time to inquire about each other's families, our health, etc.. Sure, there are suck-up scenarios and occasional rudeness, but it's by far in the minority and overall I had a great time. Kudos again to the BlogHer organizers for bringing us all together.

Check Out BlogHer's New 'Do!

I'm so excited - BlogHer just updated their site and it looks great!

I don't know which version this is, but the one I saw in '06, the one in '07, and the one in '08 are vastly different from each other. They launched the '07 version last year at their conference and people had problems with the interface for a while... now the new site seems sleeker, easier to use, more inviting, and more colorful. Thumbs up! I know it makes me want to blog more there and spend more time on the site, so I hope it has that effect on others as well.

Sebelius is Ready for DC and Coming to SF

As I wrote at MOMocrats today, I'm a big fan and supporter of Kathleen Sebelius. I may have mentioned that on this blog before as well. Essentially she took on a tough job as governor of Kansas - she's a woman Democrat in a state traditionally governed by Republican white guys. Mostly anyway. Now she may be our next best hope for breaking the glass ceiling if Hillary Clinton can't get the nomination. Kathleen Sebelius is on Obama's short list for a VP running mate. And she's a seasoned executive leader with a great record. So I'm excited to meet her tomorrow night in SF for an event where she'll be speaking. I'll be writing about that in the next couple of days.

There's an interesting article by Ben Adler on Politico.com about the women who might be good VP options for Obama.

BlogHers Act for MOTHERS Act

We've all heard the stories - moms who are incapacitated by depression, launched into this state of anxiety, sadness, loneliness that they can't seem to break out of - it's called Postpartum Depression. But what many people don't know is that this disease is much more complex than it sounds. In fact, one thing I haven't seen mentioned in other posts about this is that depression related to pregnancy and childbirth can actually begin while you're pregnant, and can affect the pregnancy itself. An important issue, to be sure, and I applaud the BlogHers Act organizers for choosing to endorse this.

The Senate is now reviewing an act, called the MOTHERS Act ("The Mom’s Opportunity To Access Help, Education, Research, and Support" for Postpartum Depression Act). This is one of those bills that just says - hey, let's address this problem in a more cohesive fashion. I haven't had a chance to read the text of the bill in detail yet, but from everything I've heard, it's a worthy effort.

Rather than going on about this, I'll direct you to Glennia Campbell's post at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog where she goes into a bit more detail about the bill itself. Also, there are several other great personal stories on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog that I highly recommend reading, and of course at BlogHer.

Hillary in Hillsborough

How could she not open her speech by talking about the weather on a day like yesterday? I could see across the Bay from this amazing property in Hillsborough - Redwood trees, gazebo and terraced gardens overlooked a tented lawn and the most perfect pool setting I've seen outside of Italy. Hillary Clinton, hopeful first woman president of the U.S. (applause please, everyone always applauds when this is mentioned and she's in the room), came to speak to 200 people. She sparkled as she came out into the sun before entering the tent.

This was my second time to see Hillary Clinton in person - my first was in the spring at a much greater distance. This time she was 10 feet from me, close enough to see the expressions on her face and notice the details in her jewelry. As she spoke - about the economy, energy policy, healthcare, education, innovation and terrorism - I felt both humbled at the opportunity and awed by how one woman, her voice hoarse from speaking around the country, can persevere through so much to achieve this simple but incredible goal of leadership.

Although most people in the group I'd peg as moderate Democrats, we had a significant share of Republicans at the event, which made the discussions during and after the event a little different than when I saw Senator Clinton last in San Francisco. There was more talk about bipartisanship and incentives for businesses, more discussion about making college affordable for everyone, and encouraging innovation while simultaneously bringing down prices in the healthcare and energy sector.

Senator Clinton spoke at length about her top priorities both now as a senator and for the future as president. She emphasized the need for a new energy policy "for our security, our environment and our economy." She jabbed at George Bush - "you cannot be a leader if no one is following." She discussed how in order to make the sweeping changes that are necessary, we will have to "reform the government."

When asked about how she would proceed in the "war on terror," she had a 3 point plan beginning with regaining the "moral authority that we've lost." "We're now seeing the results ofthe deterioration in Pakistan," she said. She thinks it's the most dangerous place in the world right now, and she thinks they have nukes. "We've got to be vigilant - not fearful bit vigilant."

On the environment, she said "it's not going to be easy (major environmental progress) but we are making some positive changes," talking about the time we have before the election. She lauded former Vice President Gore for his Nobel prize and for his efforts, but she said "I think Al would be happier with a policy than a prize," knowing there is much work that needs to be done on her part in order to make the necessary changes.

About healthcare, Hillary brought out her vast knowledge of that area and cited several related statistics. "We can't continue to spend more than anyone else in the world and not cover everyone." She also advocated on behalf of electronic medical records, saying it would save us $44Billion/year. That figure I find staggering, but I've often wondered at the disorganized fashion of most medical records as a technologist. This could build and expand businesses too, from what I know of the industry. She talked about creating new jobs and coming to agreements with everyone in biotech, insurance, "big pharma" and the rest of us and how it's unlikely the first step will be much more than a lot of compromise for everyone, but she indicated that may be the only way we can get everyone covered.

Senator Clinton spoke at great length about the challenges we have in education. She wants to provide pre-Kindergarten in 50 states. Because there's a huge drop-out rate by the third grade. Third grade! It makes me sick to think about it. She thinks it's deplorable what's happening with the cost of college education. "A lot of people in mortgage crisis are there because they took out second mortgages to send their kids to college," she said. She told stories about some of the people she's met in that situation. She also said that the U.S. is declining in the percentage of people who are going to college now, compared to many other countries.

The senator and former first lady spoke for over an hour and took Q&A for at least 30 minutes more before being whisked away to catch a flight to her next event. Hosted by Cynthia Shuman and Dan Banks and Chaired by former California State Senator Jackie Speier, the lunch event lasted longer than I expected. Jackie Speier, as always, was radiant in her introduction and shared personal stories that illustrate why she's supporting (and speaking on behalf of) Senator Clinton. There was some buzz as well about when Jackie will run for office next. Everyone in the room, of course, will be rooting for Jackie in her next race.

My mom, who happened to be in town this week, kindly sponsored my attendance to the event, since intimate political fundraisers (yes, 200 people is "intimate") tend to cost a pretty penny. She came along with me, and I was able to find one friend at short notice who came as well. She's one of the registered Republicans and she was impressed by Hillary's knowledge of the issues, but she's a tough sell (in this case because she knew one of the Republican candidates personally).

There's still a lot of talk among women and men about whether Hillary's electable - I thought that was past - but I guess not. The truth is we'll never know until it happens. Polling results say it's possible. I keep pointing-out to people that several of the first milestones in women's political history were in cases where women took offices their husbands previously occupied, so there's actually a strong precedent for this. People talk about her baggage, the smear campaigns against her, etc. and all I can say is it's sad how much of our tax money has been wasted to turn the American public against one woman - a smart, dedicated, driven, amazing person - who can and is making a monumental difference in the state of our world.

These are not simple problems Senator Hillary Clinton faces and they don't have simple solutions, nor is her list of adversaries small, but as I study her - through the debates, seeing her in person, reading what she writes, learning about her character from those who know her - I just can't help but feel that we would be in good hands if and when she becomes president. She's not sugar-coating what needs to be done and she's not making promises she can't keep. It's refreshing to me both to see a woman and someone who presents a realistic perspective on our situation as a nation, but who brings people together in a problem-solving fashion to address these issues in a proactive, insightful way. At one point during her speech, she rebuked Bush's choices as president and rhetorically asked, "how about appointing qualified people [to their posts in our government]?" Let's start by electing one.

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Also posted on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

Hillary Hopes to Breathe Life Back into Work-Life Balance

I used to think creating work-life balance was a matter of just taking control over your own life. And to a certain extent, it is. But there are factors in our society as Americans that have really gotten out-of-control. In other countries, new mothers have an opportunity to take real time off to spend with their new babies. New fathers can spend a little time at home too. And without fear of losing their jobs or taking pay cuts for doing it. Here, that's hardly ever the case. After I became a parent, I realized work-life balance is actually very hard to come by here, especially in California where so many families need to have both parents working in order to just pay the mortgage.

Hillary Clinton, in a week of initiatives focused entirely on women, released a proposal to provide greater family leave options. The press release listed key components of the plan as creating a new State Family Leave Innovation Fund that will "expand paid leave across the country". She also proposes extending FMLA to 13 Million more Americans and requiring sick leave of at least 7 days a year. (How does this work with lame PTO programs that lump vacation and sick days all into one, I wonder?) She's promoting model workplaces and a federal telecommuting initiative (woo-hoo!), she has an affordable childcare component (no details here), and she's working to prevent discrimination, particularly in the case of pregnant women.

This week, Hillary Clinton has also spoken on a number of women's issues and for women's organizations. This is a key component of her campaign, of course, since she's the first viable woman candidate for president, but I personally believe it is much more than that. Having read a great deal about her now and having talked with and read stories about people who have known her well, it is clear to me that she has a deeply rooted commitment to women and families. This is a big part of why I support her candidacy.

It's not just about Hillary Clinton being pro-choice, a woman, a mother, or particularly vocal on key issues generally identifiable as women's issues like healthcare. Reading accounts from former staffers, she walks her talk. When she was First Lady, she allowed some of the people who worked for her to take long leaves for medical, pregnancy, post partum and childcare purposes, work flexible hours and in one rare case, bring a child to work.

If someone had told me all of that before I became a mother, perhaps I would have thought it was a weak policy or unprofessional. But now I realize how hard it really is to balance work and family in a way that is both satisfactory in allowing children to be properly nurtured and cared for while allowing parents to develop meaningful careers. Work-life balance is not some pie-in-the-sky idea that can only happen for the uber-wealthy or those who make major sacrifices. Look at Europe - it is possible. Hillary's plan is just a first, much needed major step.

I am lucky to be able to attend a lunch this Monday in California that will be hosted by former California State Senator Jackie Speier, a woman who has been a long-time champion of women and families. I won't go into too much detail here because I've blogged about this before, but Jackie Speier herself is admirable in many respects through all she's been through personally. I worked for her briefly before I had to go on bed rest in my pregnancy and she was so understanding; I never would've expected that, but she knew I made the right choice in resigning my post so I could make sure my pregnancy was sustainable and that my daughter would be born healthy. I think it's very fitting that she is hosting this event for Senator Clinton after a week of women's initiatives. It shows the real commitment that Hillary has to these new proposals and I have no doubt we will make tons of progress in this area if she becomes president.

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Also posted at BlogHer.

More from New York Times on Women Online & Politics

Today, Katharine Seelye followed-up her post, "Women, Politics and the Internet" (I mentioned it two weeks ago - she quoted me from my comments to her original inquiry) with Part II introducing some of the bloggers I know and love locally who started the Momocrats blog (looking forward to working with you gals in the general election!)

Seeyle also asked readers to let her know what online outreach methods are working to reach out to women. I look forward to reading what she learns, but I think what Mindy Finn is doing with tagging for Mitt Romney's campaign is certainly one good way. It still baffles me that so many campaigns are barely utilizing online tools, but it will happen.

Ellen Malcolm, Women Bloggers & Partnering with Women Candidates

Today, I had the privilege of being invited to meet with Ellen Malcolm, Founder & President of EMILY's List. EMILY's List, for those who don't know, is the largest PAC in the U.S. and also a phenomenal training organization for pro-choice Democratic women who want to run for office and work in campaigns. (I have also had the privilege of being through their Political Opportunity Program training in 2005 through Emerge and it is incredible. Highly recommended.) 'EMILY' stands for "Early Money Is Like Yeast" because early money in campaigns shows candidate viability and makes the difference between who stays in the race to win.

Thanks to Ramona Oliver, EMILY's List Communications Director, a small group of us met over lunch in San Francisco and discussed how to utilize the Internet, particularly blogs, to get the message of women candidates out. Others in the group included Elisa Camahort of BlogHer, Gina Cooper of Netroots Nation, Elisa Batista of MotherTalkers, and Page Rockwell of the Salon.com "Broadsheet". (A couple of others were invited, but being busy women, were already double-booked.) We spoke about our own experiences with online politics, the blogosphere, and how to get more women mobilized online.

Sitting across from Ellen Malcolm, who according to Wikipedia, was "named one of America's most influential women by Vanity Fair (1998), one of the '100 Most Important Women in America' by Ladies' Home Journal (1999), one of the 'Women of the Year' by Glamour (1992), and 'Most Valuable Player' by the American Association of Political Consultants," gave me a real feeling of empowerment - knowing this woman created an organization that has launched over 11 senators, 55 congresswomen and 7 governors to their seats, not including all of the statewide women she helped attain public office. One woman, harnessing the power of other women, can really do all of that. I've heard these statistics before, and I've seen her speak at major events before, but somehow sitting at lunch together made me feel like what she does is more real. Hearing her speak on a personal level about her dream of seeing Hillary Clinton sworn in as our first woman president was really inspiring to me.

First, we talked about Hillary's hair (just kidding - that never even crossed our minds). Seriously though, the topics ran the gamut from utilizing blog advertising to helping women bloggers learn more about working with the 'mainstream' media (see yesterday's post relating to the New York Times article about women in politics online). The one point I wanted to get across to EMILY's List was the importance of candidate and high-level buy-in about online tools for campaigning; in order to use them effectively, the campaign manager, communications director and state directors (if it's national) need to totally grok why and how the net can help them win. Or at least they need enough confidence in the explanations given to them by people who do grok it who they feel they can trust. I got the sense that they already knew this, but it never hurts to have another person who's worked in the field support that notion. I've found it's absolutely essential in conducting a competitive campaign online.

It was a great lunch, and I enjoyed learning more about the other amazing women at the table as well. I hope I have the opportunity to work with all of them in one way or another in the future. I won't spill the beans on everything else discussed, but let's just say that I'm looking forward to mobilizing women for women to win in '08 and beyond.

New York Times & Women in Online Politics

Yesterday, New York Times reporter, Katharine (Kit) Seeyle, published an inquiry on their blog, "The Caucus", asking readers to respond to "why more men seemed to be involved in politics online than women... if you agreed with that and... why or why not." The discussion is still going strong in the comments there, and today Seeyle published her artilce, "Women, Politics and the Internet", on the New York Times site. (Note: I was quoted - minus my last name and without much context, but it's in there.)

Morra Aarons of BlogHer and Women and Work, was interviewed by Seeyle and followed up quickly with a post asking for more women to participate in the discussion yesterday afternoon before the deadline of the article today. Following her lead and looking at the post on the New York Times blog, I noticed a lot of women frustrated about the apparent lack of attention paid to women in politics online, and many people addressing the topic of blogs and how the discussion often turns derogatory.

One of the commenters, "woman on the inside," (comment #34 and accidentally republished in #41) wrote about how the men tend to pat each other on the backs and help each other out more and tend to be louder and more brash. She says that there are many women working in online politics, but they're not getting on "Meet the Press." This goes into another issue that Shesource.org, a partner to The White House Project and VoteRunLead.org is trying to address - getting more media attention to women whiich, I think is at the heart of this matter. I'd like to hear what Women in Media and News thinks about this topic.

I noticed this phenomenon in the Mother Jones article series on online politics a few months back and wrote about it here. Morra and Esther Dyson were two out of like 4 women interviewed vs. approx. 20 men for that series. The editor wrote back that she reached out to Arianna Huffington and looked for more. In her defense, it's not like there's a list out there of who all is involved in this field.

"woman on the inside" (I think I know who you are, but I won't out you) also uses the example of Karina Newton from Speaker Pelosi's office, and she mentions Zephyr Teachout (from the Dean campaign) and Amanda Michel among others. I'll name a few more names of women who are involved in the presidential campaigns this time around - Tracy Russo and Amy Rubin are working for John Edwards and Crystal Patterson blogs for Hillary Clinton. Mindy Finn (just to prove we're not all Democrats) is Mitt Romney's Director of eStrategy (and formerly of the RNC).

More names: Laura Quinn, Liza Sabater, Jane Hamsher, Taylor Marsh, Chellie Pingree, Susan Crawford, Becky Donatelli, Mary Katherine Ham, Heather Mansfield, Dahlia Lithwick, Chris Nolan, Maryscott O'Connor, Jeralyn Mertitt, Allison Hayward, Mary Hodder, Kathy Mitchell, Lorelei Kelly, Heather Holdridge, Jeanne Jackson, Michelle Malkin, Kate Kaye, Allison Fine, Amanda Marcotte, Barbara O'Brien. These women play major roles in political blogs and policy nonprofits. And of course we can't forget the BlogHer founders Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins or even Elizabeth Edwards who blogs frequently and likes to meet with bloggers. What about some of the companies that work on the back-end? There are a few that are women-owned and run like ROI Solutions, run by Gina Vanderloop or Orchid Suites' Tanya Renne. So while this is not even a remotely comprehensive and I don't have everyone's current affiliations, my point here is to show that there are not only many capable women working in online politics, but there are many capable women leaders working in online politics.

In my post about an event I attended a couple of weeks ago, two of the speakers were women (out of 6, that's progress) - Michelle Kraus and Perla Ni. And what about the mommybloggers? Elisa Batista of MotherTalkers, Stefania Pomponi-Butler (who wears many hats like me but also blogs about politics), and Grace Davis all blog actively about political issues. Ann Crady founded Maya's Mom as a social network or parents, but it's not like parents just talk about parenting. And of course Joan Blades can't be missed - she founded MoveOn and MomsRising. I'm not even going into the long long list of women involved in technology policy list including a majority who run the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Bet you didn't realize that! Much credit for this should go to Shari Steele.) Also women play major roles in ACM, EPIC, Creative Commons and CPSR, all leading technology policy advocacy groups I've worked with. Well-known names in that space include Annalee Newitz (see my blogroll).

Anyway, back to the New York Times. Emily McKhann of BlogHer was also interviewed and quoted in the article, and Erin Kotecki Vest of BlogHer and Queen of Spain got in on the comments, just after mine. (Mine is #48; Erin's is #49.) (Emily and Cooper Munroe are spearheading BlogHers Act.) I then tipped-off the Silicon Valley Moms about the discussion and Beth Blecherman and Glennia Campbell submitted comments #59 and #63 respectively. Rather than reprinting my long quote here, I'll just note that my main points were not about how men and women communicate differently (because I really don't know much about that - I am both a problem-solver and a consensus-builder, unlike what I said about the generalizations I've read) but I do want to point out the variety of ways women are involved in politics, not just via blogs. I think that's a huge point that may not have had enough emphasis in the article. Many women are involved and just because we're not out there spilling our guts in the blogosphere, that doesn't mean we aren't playing a dynamic, important role.

SVMoms, Politics, "Good Morning America" and Child Rearing

It's really late here and I've had a long day out, but I wanted to remark about some happenings... I write often about politics both here and on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. Today, ABC's "Good Morning America", where I was interviewed last fall about Internet privacy, covered a post by one of the other SV Moms, Rebecca Eisenberg. Rebecca wrote a post giving her own opinion about what the New York Times said about candidates taking their kids on the campaign trail and gave her opinion on the matter. I commented on Rebecca's initial post so I won't repeat what I wrote there, but I was trying to bring out points others didn't make.

The comments in general proceeded on a level still quite tame compared to most political blogs aka "you're wrong, but not totally", back and forth, which spurred Rebecca to consider her original post, make some changes, and then write a follow-up post about it. On "Good Morning America", Cokie Roberts spoke about the reality that a lot of candidates have young children and they each have to make decisions about taking them on the campaign trail. I think that's the reality of modern campaigning. Each candidate has to make a decision what's best for his or her child(ren) as it applies, and if what they try first doesn't work so well, then they readjust. I'm fascinated by this discussion because it's so important to many parents (and voters). Follow the discussion at the SVMoms Blog.

Emerge Seeking Northern California Democratic Women Interested in Running for Office

I'd always thought when I was young that perhaps I might run for office someday. I served in various board positions on student organizations growing up and then became elected as student government president for the engineering college at the University of Michigan where I gained some of the best leadership training possible through university and affiliated programs. Some of the student leaders at UofM were the best I've encountered.

Then I graduated and moved to the Bay Area where I rapidly became involved in my job and realized that holding positions of leadership was very difficult as a newbie in the workforce. I got my break to become a manager and began participating in more local nonprofit organizations as a volunteer, learning the ropes and meeting people. The idea of serving in a public office was not on my radar.

My passion through college was the intersection between technology and society, including a lot of policy-related issues so I became involved in organizations like the Association for Computing Machinery and its U.S. Public Policy Committee, USACM. Then I interned for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and became a contract project manager for CPSR, the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility under a grant. I was excited to finally be putting my energies toward what I considered important issues surrounding something I was passionate about and knowledgeable about - technology. I thought every once in a while that it would be cool to be involved in a political campaign if I could find a candidate also passionate about things meaningful to me, but I hadn't found one.

Finally, I got into politics the way many do - I helped a friend of the family with a campaign - and I was hooked. In my case, the family friend was former Senator Gary Hart, who was contemplating another presidential run in 2003. I used my technical and writing skills to manage Internet strategy, launch his blog and edit online content. Through that, I met some incredible people both locally and nationally and I learned that although there are some in politics who are just in it for power, most people truly do it because they honestly want to make a difference.

That leads me to Emerge. I've mentioned Emerge once or twice in the past, but I wanted to tell a little bit about my story and why I'm so enthralled by the program. Emerge America trains pro-choice Democratic women around the country to run for office and work on campaigns.  I heard about it from a friend of mine who graduated in their first class in 2003. I applied for the 2004 program but didn't have the local experience at the time, so after helping out with local campaigns and learning a little more about politics, I reapplied in 2005 and was accepted into the Emerge California program. The program meets one weekend a month in locations around the Bay Area, and I met some of the brightest, kindest, most interesting women I've ever known.

Emerge provided a variety of opportunities for me and opened many doors. I learned about campaign nuts and bolts, fundraising, public speaking, network building, and the legislative process. I sat at a table with Nancy Pelosi and other program members. I was part of an event with Jackie Speier, who I later worked for on her campaign for Lieutenant Governor. I met several other notable local women like Dianne Feinstein, and I had the chance to see Anna Eshoo, Silicon Valley's representative to Congress, whom I admire. I haven't run for office, but I applied to and was appointed to a Menlo Park's Environmental Quality Commission, where I continued to learn more about how local government works.

It can be difficult for women to find out about Emerge, so that's why I'm posting about it here. I also want to emphasize that Emerge trains women of all ages, all ethnicities, all sexual orientations, all professions. (Although I've noticed at least half of the alumni are moms.) The only requirements are that the women be pro-choice, Democrats, have a record of community involvement, and a serious interest in running for office in the near future. Counties where Emerge California is recruiting include Alameda, Contra Costa, Sacramento, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San Mateo, Solano and Sonoma. Several program graduates have run for office and been elected. (Stats: 114 alumnae, 17 runs for office, 10 wins, 3 more running for November '07, and approx. 60 board and commission appointments.)

Information sessions are this week - Monday in Palo Alto at 6:30pm at 2091 Barbara Drive, and Wednesday in San Jose at 6:30pm at 1191 Carolyn Avenue. To RSVP, please email the Emerge California Executive Director, Gretchen Schoenstein, gretchen[at]emergeca[dot]org. Applications are available on the Emerge California web site. They are due September 24, interviews will be in late October and/or early November, and the program begins December of 2007.

(Also posted at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.)

Vote in BlogHers Act Poll on Global Healthcare

BlogHers Act is taking on a year-long initiative to make an impact in an area selected by BlogHer members. We voted and the topic selected was global healthcare, but since that is so broad, we're trying to narrow it down some. Here's a poll on sub-topics. You can select more than one...




Here's the related post. My choices were clean water and training healthcare workers. I'm very passionate about the maternal healthcare issue, but I think that clean water supercedes it - if you have a bunch of babies that can't drink clean water...

I think 3 action items for the campaign would be great:
1) Clean water campaign
2) Train healthcare workers
3) Provide birthing kits to communities

I think these could all 3 go together - the clean water is harder because it's related to infrastructure, but the other two are more easily achieved... anyway this may be biting off more than we can chew, but raising awareness is the first step.

Exciting News for Hillary Clinton Supporters

Hillary supporters can be excited about a few things - first, Dianne Feinstein endorsed Hillary Clinton last week. In terms of powerful Democratic women and California, this is very significant. I got a tip a few weeks ago this was going to happen, but it's always inspiring when it hits the news. I met Senator Feinstein once and found her to be both gracious and a good listener. Senator Clinton is fortunate to have her support.

Second, Hillary is actively leading on more issues I care about like disability rights and the environment. According to the ADA agenda on her web site, she believes "we must shift our orientation towards a new approach that helps those with disabilities thrive and reach their potential in the workplace, community and nation." I wrote about this in yesterday's post on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. Everyone needs a more flexible work place and I believe, based on factual anecdotes presented from former members of Senator Clinton's staff, that she feels strongly about this and will push forward on the issue in office.

On the environment, families, and health, she's reintroduced the Family Asthma Act to "improve our ability to examine the environmental pollutants that are linked to asthma." It's not just asthma that's a problem - lower income families often live near toxic dumps and factories where all kinds of environmental pollutants get into the air and water causing cancer and now there's some proof of links to autism. My father worked on environmental class action lawsuits and saw first hand what Erin Brokovich and others found was affecting hundreds of families. And for those who think this is not a key environmental issue, think again - how do you expect families who can't afford solar power and new appliances to make changes if their needs aren't addressed?

Third, Dana Singiser, Director of Women's Outreach for the Hillary Clinton campaign put up a very nice post on her blog about visiting with us at BlogHer. I recommend everyone interested in women's issues in this campaign - regardless of whether you're a Clinton supporter or not – stay in the loop on this. We must rally women voters in the general election for whoever the Democratic nominee is. The women's vote is so crucial, especially for the general election. And if you want to get involved for the primary and/or the general, drop me email. I'll be providing more information about this on my blog and through an email list in the near future.

Women and Flexible Work Options

I just wrote a long post on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog about the recent series of articles in The Mercury News by columnist Sue Hutchison, discussing various issues relating to work for today's parents. (It focuses on the moms, but to be fair, these issues relate to dads too.) I was quoted in two of the articles and I go on in my post to explain the reasons behind my quotes - there really are a lot of moms who want to work part-time and still be able to spend a significant amount of time with their children, and I think this is an important issue.

BlogHer Politics Break-out Session: What Questions Do Women Bloggers Want Candidates to Answer in Election 2008? SubGroup - Iraq

I was asked to liveblog during the BlogHer politics break-out session Saturday entitled "What Questions Do Women Bloggers Want Candidates to Answer in Election 2008?" when we broke into subgroups. I sat in the Iraq subgroup and there were some really interesting women in my group (as with all of them) who put together a great set of topics and questions, chronicled here in the comments, along with the liveblog about the entire panel.

The three main issues we came up with were: leaving Iraq (timeline and logistics), financial support through the transition and infrastructure rebuilding, and status of the VA/Healthcare system for our military veterens.

Candidates Missed a Great Blogosphere Media Spike Opportunity

I'm sitting here at BlogHer watching Elizabeth Edwards interviewed by Lisa Stone, BlogHer founder and journalist. We're all very excited she's here. A blogger from the Edwards campaign is also here, as is a representative from the Clinton campaign.

Obama's headquarters is down the street. No one from his campaign is here. I just commented Zephyr Teachout's post at TechPresident about this. We're excited they will all be present at the Yearly KOS conference here in Chicago at the end of the week responding to that invitation from the progressive Democratic blogger communities.

So what do we need to do to get the nominees to come next year to BlogHer? As I noted in my comment referenced above, we have huge communities of swing voters represented here from all over the political spectrum.

BlogHer Update

I'm entering day two of BlogHer - yesterday we launched BlogHers ACT and we'll be focusing on "global health" which encompasses a lot of issues, so we're working on narrowing it down. Two big things that came out of the brainstorm session yesterday were "empowering midwives" and "clean water." Essentially women and children are the most affected around the world in terms of health risks and early deaths - especially childbirth-related - and so things like birthing kits and clean water can make an incredible difference on alll levels. It's tricky to do all of this, of course, but BlogHer has tens of thousands of bloggers (I don't remember the exact figure off the top of my head right now) in their system so if we can even mobilize 1/10th of that online, choose a specific mission, partner with some great organizations, we'll be well on our way to raising awareness and getting something done. I'll be blogging a lot more about specifics over the next few months.

Today the politics track takes place including my Second Life panel at 1:30 Pacific/SL time. We'll be discussing candidates in Second Life and online in general and how these online media like blogs are making a difference in the campaigns. My virtual session overlaps slightly with the end of the GOTV session here so that's a bit of a bummer, but for the most part people can goto both and then the closing keynote will be from Elizabeth Edwards.

In Chicago at BlogHer

I got to read the Martha Stewart issue of Wired (something I never thought in a million years I'd see) on the plane. I'm now in Chicago. I'll be at BlogHer the next few days... hopefully I'll have some time to post about it here. Should be fun...

Seeking Women to Run for Office!

The following is excerpted from something that was sent to me through Emerge America, a national women's Democratic political leadership training program):

"Can you think of a “PTA mom” who should run for school board? A community leader who should run for city council? A businesswoman who should run for the legislature? Introducing the She Should Run campaign, a brand new project of the Women's Campaign Forum, aimed at gathering the nominations of 1,000 pro-choice women to run for public office... "

Do you know a pro-choice woman who should run for office? Tell her that she should run:
http://www.sheshouldrun.org/EmergeAmerica

"Women don’t need to be career politicians to be qualified to hold political office. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was a small business owner before she ran for state representative. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney was a teacher and school administrator before she ran for New York City Council. And Congresswoman Gwen Moore was a Milwaukee AmeriCorps *VISTA volunteer before running for state assembly. These women ran because they were leaders in their communities – and somebody encouraged them to reach even higher. We all know someone who should run for office. It could be your mother. Your sister. Your co-worker. Your neighbor. Your friend."

Local? Ask me questions about Emerge California as well. It's a great program.

Join Me For BlogHer Second Life

BlogHer '07 in Second Life's schedule is posted. You don't have to be in Chicago for BlogHer to attend online! (Although I will be live in Chicago at BlogHer while presenting in Second Life.)

I just offered a couple of weeks ago to speak at BlogHer. They were already full for the politics track, but they invited me to be a "speaker" online in their Second Life community simulation instead. Not knowing what to expect, but assuming I could figure it out as I go along, I said "sure" - why not?

I think if I wasn't someone who had prior experience with computer games, it might make me uneasy at first, but Second Life is a really cool program and the instructions are very simple. I've only made it through the beginning of Orientation Island (no time!) and I'm already having fun. The only problem with Second Life is it takes a lot of time to participate and it sucks up a lot of processor power, so if you have a laptop like me, multitasking is challenging while running the Second Life app. When I set it up for its test run, it was too slow to get much accomplished thus my as of yet incomplete Orientation.

So I expect to spend some time this weekend finding my way through Second Life to BlogHer. My avatar, Sairy Bailey, will be speaking at 1:30 CDT next Saturday, July 28th about politics online, campaigns in Second Life and how blogs and social networks come into play with campaigns, particularly on the national level. Join me... it's free, and if you're not a woman, no one ever has to know! Anyone can be a "Her" in Second Life.

Report From Yesterday's "Ultimate Women's Power Lunch" in SF

Yesterday, I had the unique opportunity, thanks to Emerge America, to sit with a group of a few hundred women at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and celebrate Nancy Pelosi's 20 years of service in the U.S. Congress and her election as Speaker of the House. They called it the "Ultimate Women's Power Lunch". I don't know if I'd go that far, but it was fun to catch-up with friends and although I'd met Speaker Pelosi before, it had been a few years. They showed a wonderful tribute to her service, including when she invited her grandchildren and other children in the House on the day of her swearing-in up to the podium with her. I have to admit that image brought tears to my eyes.

Nita Whitaker sang the most spectacular version of "God Bless America" I've ever heard. I felt like the ballroom was about 10 square feet with her voice able to carry several football fields in distance. In a past life, I sang in musicals, choirs, ensembles and the like, so I've studied voice and I'm particularly critical of female vocalists, but she blew me away. I was breathless.

Anyway, back to politics. So the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), through yesterday's lunch raised $1.2 Million for their Women LEAD program. The speakers included Congresswoman Allison Schwartz, Chairwoman of Women LEAD, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (our gal from Silicon Valley), and of course Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who received a well-deserved standing ovation when she came up to speak.

There was a lot of talk about "breaking the marble ceiling" and Speaker Pelosi detailed the long history of how we've been chipping away at that ceiling for 200 years. Then she spoke about her goals as Speaker of the House and how she's started to "drain the swamp that is Washington, D.C." She spoke about how we need to rely on scientific data for making progress on the environment and other issues, and that science and faith "both reflect truth" and in essence can work together.

Be prepared for when Congress returns to Washington - Nancy Pelosi says getting us out of Iraq is 1st priority and she wants it completed by April 1st, 2008. She said we're spending $10 Billion a month there. I couldn't believe that figure. Imagine all we could do with that money... and she said that generals who are leaving the military are advising her to withdraw now. I've been taking a back seat on the Iraq issue because I really don't know much about the state of the Middle East and I figure people who do need to make those decisions. But when she said the generals say we should leave, that got my attention. And she also said that the strategy they are advising does not mean we won't have troops in Iraq to deal with terrorist cells - that's something different entirely.

Bloghers Act - Initiative Launching in 3 Weeks

Blogher, for those who don't know, is a women's blogging community online through their site, ad network and cross linking and offline through their conferences and informal local gatherings. The Blogher '07 annual conference is happening at the end of July in Chicago. (It looks like I'll be there as a panelist for their Blogher Second Life online series. I just signed-up, so I'll post more info later.) They are launching an exciting new initiative to harness the power of their fantastic women's network.

Their program is called Bloghers Act, and it has two goals: 1) make a difference in a single cause (voted on by Blogher members) and 2) identify the top 4 issues we feel candidates need to address in the upcoming election. It will be interesting to see where the votes come out.

I would love to see candidates more seriously address some of the issues I didn't vote for, like "separation of church and state", but I know too well most of the candidates won't dare to go there for fear of losing a large segment of voters, so instead I chose to hear more about what they want to do about the environment and the economy since they're both ticking time bombs. Whatever the Bloghers come up with, I'll support it and I hope to be involved on some level to see it through. I think it's a great idea and a wonderful way to harness the power of women bloggers.

Mother Jones on Digital Democracy

Thanks to Farber's IP list, I learned of this collection of articles and interviews on "Digital Democracy" in Mother Jones magazine, online. It takes into account where we were in the last election, what kind of progress we've made, and where we're really going now - arguing that MySpace isn't necessarily all it's cracked-up to be in terms of motivating communities to act in a political sense but also introducing other areas that are making waves online. (And I have to say I love some of the article titles like "10,000 Deaniacs: Where are they now?")

I haven't had time to read it all yet, but the one comment I have so far is they only mention two women from what I've seen - Esther Dyson and Morra Aarons. Both worthy of noting, to be sure, but there are more of us in this space - consultants, bloggers, techies, entrepreneurs, lawyers - with expertise, like Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and MomsRising.org, Jennifer Granick & Lauren Gelman at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and Madeline Stanionis of Watershed just to name a few here in the Bay Area. See also: Shesource.org for other resources. I'd like to see more women interviewed in general on this topic.

Speaker Pelosi & Geraldine Ferraro Speaking July 9 in SF

This is an event that any Democratic woman interested in politics will want to attend: The first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the first woman Vice Presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro, at the "Ultimate Women's Power Lunch" celebrating Pelosi's 20 years of service in the House on July 9th at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Funds raised go to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). General tickets are $500 but there's also a "Young Professional" rate for $100. Sign up here. You'll find me there at the Emerge table.

Mercury News on Mommy Wars

I was quoted last week in the San Jose Mercury News about the "mommy wars" hype and some follow-up to the discussion on the Merc blog via a series of articles by Sue Hutchison. I wrote a lot more about it than she printed, of course, but essentially my thoughts on the topic are that yes, we have more options than we've had in the past but we still have a long way to go.

Most jobs are full-time in the office and that's the only option. If you want anything other than that, you won't be considered for the position. I understand the employer's perspective, but at the same time, there needs to be a reality check. Jobs are going overseas to people in other countries - why not down the street to someone in his/her home? It's not like moms are the only ones who want more job flexibility - it's just that we have a more obvious reason that allows us to be clumped together into one category which may or may not fully describe who we are or what we want to do with our time.

Kudos to Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn and author of The Mothernood Manifesto, for starting Moms Rising, an organization focused on getting this issue the attention it needs.

Hillary Clinton's Promise

I saw Hillary Clinton speak a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. She packed a ballroom at the Sheraton Palace Hotel full of people for lunch. Most in the audience were women who heard about the event through word of mouth and womens' political organizations in the area, since the event was organized by Susie Tompkins Buell and Emily's List. I don't know how much money the event raised but it must've been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I've blogged before about how wonderful it is that a woman is finally a viable candidate both with respect to qualifications and fund raising, but I had no particular knowledge of Hillary Rodham Clinton's skills as an orator or policy maker beyond what I've read in the news before the SF event. What surprised me that afternoon as I sat eating sushi shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the Bay Area's most powerful women, was not what I expected. In fact, I tried very hard to go into the event with no expectations at all, but with an open mind to consider this person as a candidate in her own right - not as the wife of Bill Clinton, but as someone with deep policy experience, a Senator, lawyer, wife, mother, and someone who spent 8 years working closely with the President in the White House. I knew she was savvy politically and I knew she has gained a reputation for working across the aisle in Congress. What I didn't know was how impressed I would be.

First of all, I've seen a lot of candidates speak. She has skills that match the best of them. But more importantly, she did a few things to surprise me. A) She listened to her audience, without just talkinig about her agenda. She spoke about issues that concerned us. B) She responded to questions with detailed answers, not just canned sound bites. She talked for at least ten minutes about how to improve education and gave actual examples and thought-out policy changes. I've never seen a politician give such detail before. She spoke a lot about how important pre-school is, for example. It really made me think more about that issue than I ever had before. C) She admitted her mistakes - particularly regarding her attempts to work on universal healthcare in the past.

As someone who has worked for the government in security, I'm always concerned about any details that relate to security detail and the other thing that interested me about this event was the level of Secret Service attachment Senator Clinton has. I assumed there would be some, but as a Senator, presidential candidate and former first lady, she has a serious security staff and motorcade. This got me thinking about another issue that I don't think most people have considered with respect to her run: she's a huge target. So many people dislike her for a variety of reasons, so she needs that security. And on top of that, she's taking a major additional risk becoming a presidential candidate. People can say what they want about her political agenda and formulating a path to run for president for years, but it takes a lot of courage to put up with the kind of criticism and risk.

The question on everybody's minds, of course, is: Can she WIN? This is an incredibly unique case, so my answer still is that I don't know. Of course Bill Clinton and political pundits with experience say she can, but they have to say that. Hillary herself says: "we won't know until we try." (She was referring to getting a woman elected in general, but since she's the only woman with a chance right now, she's our sample.) I just don't know. It's a numbers game and she has to convince enough moderate and liberal voters to vote for her. Most conservatives detest her and will never consider voting for her and will fight tooth and nail to defeat her. But it is theoretically possible that if she swung enough moderates who see her work across the aisle that she could do it. And if she could capture the majority of the women's vote (which I think she can), that will be huge. That's assuming she can win the Democratic nomination, which I believe she can. I don't know if she will, of course, but she's definitely a strong enough candidate that she's viable in that area - unlike Joe Biden, for example, who just doesn't have a chance at this point. We'll have to see how the debates play out with Barack Obama, the youthful favorite, and Chris Dodd, who I believe is a dark horse.

The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton is worth considering. Take a look at her site. Don't count her out. Read about her policy plans. Go see her speak next time she's in town. The one thing that I took from the event was that day 1 in the White House, she will hit the ground running and make major policy changes to improve the environment, education, health care, and foreign policy. Whether she can lead as well as she can collaborate remains to be seen, but she definitely has promise.