As a former Iowan, it's great to see the state get 15 minutes of fame. I loved New York Times reporter Adam Nogurney's piece and the picture on Sunday featuring the good looks and eats of Iowa, a place that New Yorkers love to diss.
But mostly, it made me nostalgic for the every four-year opportunity to have almost any candidate for a burger or a party.
This is a special election-- the 10th anniversary of The White House Project that aims to advance women into leadership across all sectors and that has been building a pipeline to the presidency by training and women all over the US from every region to run.
We have learned some things during our first nine years, and with all this attention to Iowa and having a woman frontrunner for the presidency, this seems like the time to share what we know about gender, power, the presidency and you.
It's the perfect time because at the top of the tickets we have not only gender, but race, class and religion being front and center.
And because we have a woman who isn't talking about gender as a problem, even when others do, but expecting attacks as a frontrunner.
It's also perfect because in this election gender is pushing gender. Having tried to get male candidates to pay attention to our issues, or even use the "w" word (woman) with a female in the race, it's pretty heady to have the boys now vying for being the best women candidate. (Look no further than the front page story about Barack Obama in last Sunday's Times.)
And we girls feel very excited about having the formerly "soft" issue of health care be the new "hard" issue that all the candidates claim and claim to have the best solution for. We are pasted across all their webpages, courted and fought over. It's way better than being the prom queen. Stay tuned.