Now that we’ve had a few days to recover from our devastation, I think it’s time for a little cold, calculating thinking among those of us who hang out at the HireHeels Boutique and our sisters across the nation. Consider this:

1.) Politics is about the aquisition and use of power: The candidates we admire use power for the good of us all–to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic, to build an economy that lets us all earn our way to fiscal health and dignity, to help those who can’t help themselves. But the game of politics is about getting and using power. Those who fail to recognize that lose both power and elections. No power in the game, no power to help the people you want to help.

2.) Democrats need us to win in November: That makes us powerful. Obama and his true believers may be dissing us right now, but like it or not, they won’t win in November without us – PERIOD!

Keeping in mind those two premises, my question to all of us is: What do we really want? And what does Hillary want? (Besides a month at canyon ranch.)

We can’t read Hillary’s mind, but we can try to figure out our own. It’s not easy, with so much good, justified (misogynistic) reason to be angry. But in my exprience, this is exactly the time for us to pause and decide exactly what we want to get in exchange for our power. Talk about every possible action, even the ones that make us retch like the times we had too many Cosmos on empty stomachs. Play devil’s advocate with ourselves, to make sure we have examined every dark little corner of our strategy. (Something that Mark Penn SHOULD have done for the gadzillions he was earning…but I digress.) Do we want to see Hillary nominated for POTUS? VPOTUS? The promise of a cabinet post, seat on the Supreme Court? Or do we play hard-hard-hardball on Hillary’s agenda to get it adopted?

Just think about Denver (and the potential of our Million Woman March). If we’re organized and all singing that same 70’s “I Am Woman” tune, how frightening would that be to the DNC elders who were so quick to diss us. A bunch of brightly-dressed, focused, pissed-off women who have learned how to use their power? My OPI-polished toes are tingling at the very thought!

The Minx agrees that Hillary should go ahead and “suspend” her campaign right now. Once she’s no longer the target of all that media misogyny and hostility, why, Mr. Wonderful can have the whole glaring spotlight to himself.

Perhaps the Precious Pied Piper of droonlin’ dems might not do so well without Hillary deflecting the fire. Perhaps she’ll be bathed in angelic light as the convention draws near, while she still has all her unreleased delegates in her purse. Perhaps Precious
will implode. Whatever happens, the Dems still need what Hillary and her supporters (especially the gals) bring to the game. We’d better know exactly what to ask for when they come a’crawlin’ like a cheating spouse trying to settle the divorce before the mistress dumps him. Whichever way YOU go – make sure you answer: What do you want for your power?