Because of Hillary, I can be president?

Buried (rightfully so) in all the talk today about Scooter Libby and Walter Reed and the U.S. attorney firings has been Hillary Clinton's appearance before EMILY's List today.

Yet after seeing this in the Note today I just can't resist commenting on it here:

EMILY's List has endorsed Clinton and will mobilize its activists and donors in support of her candidacy.

A key piece of the grassroots effort will be an online initiative called "I Can Be President." The Clinton campaign plans to launch an "I Can Be President" web site to invite women across the country to express their support for Clinton's candidacy

After reading this... I'm curious what others think about the idea of equating Hillary becoming president with your chances of becoming president. I think this approach will totally work with my mother, who grew up in a Chicago suburb not far from Hillary's and is about the same age and already supporting her and has long been fond of her.

But am I the only woman who finds Hillary's campaign theme as a breakthrough for womanhood unappealing? Is it a generational thing?

Maybe because I am more than 30 years younger than Hillary, maybe because I have "Clinton fatigue," maybe because I'm already enamored of Barack Obama and thus biased... but I just don't see Hillary's campaign for the presidency as a crusade for women that I need to be a part of simply because she shares my gender, and nor do I think if she loses it should be considered a terrible loss for women.

First of all -- believe it or not -- before reading about her "I can be president" campaign it simply never crossed my mind as a woman that I am supposed to think I can't be president - at least that I should think I can't be president simply because I'm a woman.

There are too many other reasons for a person like me without an Ivy League education, without connections to the nation's biggest power brokers, without much of the top candidates' intellect and charm and wealth to think I can't be president that I didn't much consider the whole gender thing before this.

But there's another reason that her "I can be president" statement for woman's solidarity doesn't ring true for me and is not enough to get my vote -- because Hillary is not every woman.

True, the symbolism of having a woman president could be great in terms of changing perceptions about women and fighting sexism in the workplace.

But if that woman is Hillary, will it have the same effect? I'm not talking about her intellect or personality which I think is fine enough, or even her character here (which I question).

If Hillary wins the presidency, it won't tell me as a woman that some day I can be president.

It tells me I can be president... if my MRS degree links me with a former president and he cheats on me making me a sympathetic victim who people pity and empathize with thus making me non-threatening to men.

Unfair? Probably.

But I am just putting this out there because I am genuinely interested in what people think Hillary's presidency would mean for women in this country... and if those opinions are quite different for older women than for younger ones.

Because at this point I find Barack Obama's rise to political power much more inspiring to me even as a white woman because of the way he's broken through and exploded beyond Illinois politics. He fought against but then cultivated the black establishment on the South Side of Chicago despite being too young and too much an outsider. He fought against but then cultivated the entrenched Chicago Democratic machine despite being too young and too much an outsider. And now he is fighting against yet simultaneously cultivating the Washington establishment despite being too young and too much an outsider.

Similar stories exist for all the other candidates as well.

Yet how did Hillary become the Democratic frontrunner? She married well and became popular because despite protests to the contrary she did a lot of "standing by her man" and then finally gained elected office with Bill's help by parachuting into New York for an easy Senate win.

I'm sorry, Hillary. This doesn't tell me "I can be president."