In 1974, ten years before Walter Mondale selected me as his running mate, Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick who served as President Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations wrote a book called Political Woman. It was a study of female legislators from around the country. It was another time. Remember, U.Va. had only just opened its classes to women four years before. Try to imagine, if you will, what it was like in those years. In those days, America was mired in a divisive and tragic war. We had a deeply unpopular Republican president. An isolated and paranoid White House. Citizens were worried about out of control wire-tapping and intrusive surveillance. Civil rights were under attack. Supreme Court Justices were being appointed to enforce a conservative moral agenda. And the future governor of California was posing in tight little Speedos. My, how things change.

What interested Jeane Kirkpatrick as she explored the most important and interesting thing about women’s political roles was that they were then so insignificant. Sure women had always been active and enthusiastic campaign volunteers, but she wrote and I quote, “Half a century after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, no woman has been nominated to be President or Vice-President. No woman has served on the Supreme Court. In that year, there was no woman in the Cabinet. No woman in the United States Senate. No woman serving as Governor of a major state. No woman mayor of a major city. And no woman in the leadership of either major political party.” To be sure a lot has happened in the thirty-two years since that book was written and I don’t need to cite the statistics, but we all know that I will, right?

We now have a woman on the Supreme Court. Of course, until last year we had two, which is just the same thing as everything else. One step forward, two steps back. We’ve had twenty-two women in the Cabinet. Twenty of them since 1974 and have served not only as Secretary of Labor or Transportation or HHS, but as Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and Chief Economic Advisor. I am not going to hold my breath waiting for a female Secretary of Defense or a Secretary of Homeland Security because holding your breath can be a dangerous thing, but I do believe that too with time will happen.

Today we have seventy women in the United States House of Representatives. And one of them, Nancy Pelosi, will be the Speaker after the midterm elections. At the same time, there are now fourteen women in the United States Senate. Sixteen hundred and eighty women in state legislatures. Seventy-nine women holding statewide elective executive office. And over two hundred women mayors of major cities with populations of over thirty thousand. Now that is all great progress, but if you put those numbers in prospective, women are still only sixteen percent of the House, fourteen percent of the Senate, twenty-five percent of the state-wide offices, twenty-two point eight percent of the state legislatures. Yes that’s better. So what does all that mean?

In another book, in a book called In a Different Voice, written shortly after Dr. Kirkpatrick’s book was written, Harvard professor Carol Gilligan argued that women’s voices are essential to good government. Now that’s not necessarily because we are more caring and more effective. Well that may be true. But because we bring another dimension to the political process. True, she is generalizing but she posits that instead of engaging confrontation, women are more apt to negotiate. Instead of looking at short-term solutions to problems, women are more apt to think in terms of generations to come. Instead of thinking win/lose terms, women are more apt to see the gray area in between. Women are born to precisely the kind of leadership that is now needed.  We are socialized to listen. We are taught to persuade. We learn to build coalitions, as politicians ought to. We know the value of planning, as politicians should. We think of the next generations, as politicians must. Those are all political skills. They help us contribute to the lives of our nation.

As women become more involved in the political process at every level, not just as elected officials, we bring our own views and our own skills to shape our world. So too, our life experiences help qualify us to lead. Take economics. We don’t just learn from studies and statistics, but from the very fabric of our lives. Like any expert, even male ones, we can study economics at a prestigious University like U.Va., but we also understand economics from the shopping desk and from raising our families. And I don’t care what job you women get eventually when you get out of this school, you will also find that you will also be the person who will taking care of your families. This is just one example of the respect we bring to the leadership of the nation.

We know in our bones that national security does not only need concern for military balance. We sense intimately that national security includes the cohesion of society, the strength of its values, how it cares for its families and its children. Our roles as caretakers, nurturers, and mothers give us a special perspective. Not a single perspective as those who denigrate us would advance. But an additional perspective because it usually calls us to care for elderly parents or ill family members. We understand the need for active government involvement in healthcare and childcare because it is we who often raise the next generation, we understand intimately the need for education.

Now some would disagree with my analysis. Last year I had the honor of introducing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to give a speech on the role of women in the law. I am a lawyer and so my introduction referenced some of her opinions as well as those of Justice Ginsberg. And I made a point of saying that being women, you did make a difference on issues that are important to women. Justice O’Connor was having absolutely none of that. Although she agreed that we all bring our life experiences to the jobs we do, she didn’t see gender as a distinction factor in her decisions. You can tell I am not practicing anymore because I was very vocalized and I disagreed with her. I think gender cannot help but affect how a woman judge rules on issues affecting women because her decisions are influenced by her life experience. I don’t know if I would have gone to the max so many times to help get women appointed to the bench in New York if it would’ve only given women equal employment opportunities, however important that may be. It is because women on the court bring a balance to our judiciary that it does make a difference. I believe the same holds true for ethnicity. Just as Thurgood Marshall drew on his life experience as an African-American and as a Civil Rights activist to influence the Supreme Court in the sixties, in so doing, wrote some the greatest Civil Rights decisions ever handed down. Although I admit, this lawyer would not want to make the same case for Justice Clarence Thomas, I know we attorneys are trained to give both sides of the argument, but I am sorry, I am not that good of a lawyer.

The same principle holds true with legislators. Veterans bring their life experiences to the fore on behalf of veterans. Just think John McCain who serves on the Armed Services Committee as a member of the Vietnam Veterans in Congress. It is no accident that a former prisoner of war has pushed so hard for legislation to ban torture and is now so vocal trying to lay out the parameters for dealing with the fourteen prisoners that we have brought down at Guantánamo. Or there are farmers like Chuck Grassley, which seek assignment to the Agriculture Committee and co-chair Soybean Caucus and the Pork Industry Caucus so he can advocate on behalf of farmers. And then there’s Dick Cheney out there fighting the good fight to make sure his pals at the oil companies have the benefit of their own dedicated representatives. I can’t help it.  Every once in awhile you are going to hear that. But in the case of women, it is not exactly a surprise that women elected officials, no matter what committee they are on, no matter what party they belong to, have a different sensitivity to the needs of women. Their voices are the ones we hear loudest on daycare comparable work flex time. They are the ones who speak up on nutrition programs for poor pregnant women, pre-natal healthcare, and immunization programs like Head Start. They are the ones to insist that something be done to help the aging population, which is overwhelmingly poor and female. Through their lives and their experience, they know the very human cause of these issues to women. And that sensitivity and firsthand knowledge is an important reason to elect women to office.

Of course politics is about more than a gender and numbers game. At root, politics concerns the shaping of our lives. It is a fundamental social exercise and despite what one might think if they look around at nations in the world, leadership does not spring from the male chromosomes. As a matter of fact, now, in country after country, we are seeing women taking ownership of their lives. Women electing women to lead their countries.  This past January, we saw history made. In Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was the first woman in modern history elected to head an African country. Women came out in overwhelming support of her candidacy and women are at the top of her agenda. Chile’s new President Michelle Bachelet elected shortly thereafter has already set a standard for her administration by appointing women to half the positions in her cabinet. Because of this, women leaders are at the table in Chile and I don’t mean at the dinner table. And they are making decisions that shape their nation’s life. We saw Germany elect Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democrat Union as their first female Chancellor. And in early March, Portia Simpson Miller became Jamaica’s first female Prime Minister. I particularly like the way the Miami Herald reported that event. I was down in Miami and picked up the paper. It was such fun. It said that when the vote was announced, the supporters reveled a victory as the reggae tunes “The strength of a woman” and “Thank you mama” blasted.

So you might ask, so what about the United States. I knew you’d know I’d come to that eventually, right?  It’s great that there was a woman nominated for the Vice-President in 1984, but no woman has since been nominated or even seriously contested for the nomination since that time. I thought it would have happened by now. Unfortunately we are all waiting. Well, until recently, the debate over women candidates has always focused on being asked about the question of qualifications. We are constantly asked is there a qualified woman. To which woman rightly respond, compared to whom? The current era puts that question in a whole new light. I think someone needs to tell Dick Cheney that when Shakespeare wrote first we kill all the lawyers, he was just kidding.

To any woman here contemplating becoming Vice-President, I would offer just two words of advice – target practice. So no, I wouldn’t say recent history is actually about qualifications. The deeper, more political truth is the American electorate is accustomed to expect certain types of experience in candidates for national office. It doesn’t hurt to be governor of a large state to be Vice-President. Or Senator of long experience. Or better yet, to be the son of a former President. In fact, ever since Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, no one except General Dwight Eisenhower has made it to the Oval Office without having held one of those jobs. So we have to have enough women in the pool from which national candidates usually come.

It’s also about having women who are willing to take the risk and put themselves on the line for President. Historically we have had a few women who stepped forth. The first woman to run for President in the United States was Victoria Woodhull in 1872 followed by Belva Lockwood in 1884. Senator Margaret J. Smith in 1964. Congressman Shirley Chisholm who ran in 1972 and my friend Pat Shroud who ran in 1988. And we kind of waited until 2000 when Elizabeth Dole entered the Republican primary. And I thought she was a dynamite candidate, but surely after she got into the race, she found herself up against a brick wall. President Bush, Governor Bush at the time, had co-opted endorsements and financial support throughout the country and with that support, he tried to blow over money and all of her support. And of course Senator Carol Moseley Braun tried again in 2004. Now I am not suggesting that every woman who wins election to the Senate or to a Governor’s Mansion will retain seniority in the House of Representatives can or should run for President. That must be a personal decision, but we must put ourselves in the position to be able to make that run if we choose. Every time a woman runs for an elective office, it is like throwing a stone in a lake. The ripples spread far beyond the immediate point of impact. When a woman finally runs for President, the impact will be incredible because the Presidency is no mere stone. It is a boulder and when a woman does win that office, the ripple effects will create a wave of change that will be felt everywhere.

I personally think that 2008 is the year we will see women willing to take the risk and when women running for national office have a realistic chance of winning. Like whom, you might ask. Well, on the Republican side Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Senior Senator from Texas has, on more than one occasion, said that she would not run for President, but she would accept nomination for Vice-President. And of course there is speculation bout Condoleezza Rice. And on the Democratic side, well let me see. Oh yes, my Senator, the junior Senator from New York Hillary Rodham Clinton. She won yesterday by a staggering amount. She is going to win the November election by huge numbers as well. If Hillary chooses to run, I believe that Hillary will win the nomination and I believe she can win the election. I am heartened by recent polls that show strong support for a woman’s candidacy.

Now does having a woman leader make a difference? In an interview for the Voice for America, Columbian woman’s rights activist stated that she believes that voters around the world are increasingly turning to women because of their ability to reach agreements and find common ground. She says that women in government raise issues that others overlook. Pass bills that others oppose. Put money into projects that others ignore and seek an end to abuses others accept. That truth is on display everywhere from Indonesia and Thailand to Afghanistan and Iraq to right in Washington D.C. Now that may be why our U.S. State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy are making such an effort to involve women politically in emerging democracies. I serve on the Board of the National Democratic Institute of India, which is in arm with the National Endowment for Democracy. It receives most of its funding from the State Department.

For those of you who don’t know about the NDI, here is a little bit of background. Shortly after President Reagan became President, he created the National Endowment for Democracy. He felt that since the Soviet Union had a vehicle to spread communism, the KGB, that the United States should have a vehicle to spread democracy, the NED. Apparently it’s crucial that these things always have three initials. The NED has four arms, one of which is the National Democratic Institute, NDI. The other one is the National Republican Institute, for some reason it is not N anything, it is IRI. Then there is a Chamber Institute and then there is a Labor Institute. So there are four arms of NED. NDI has been heavily involved for years in Iraq and elsewhere supporting women’s participation in elections both as voters and as candidates.

In 2003, Madeleine Albright who is the chair of NDI, convened a meeting of women political leaders from twenty-seven countries. And out of that meeting came the Global Action plan, a document that outlines practical reform measures that can help political parties broaden their appeal by becoming more inclusive and representative. And in three years since that meeting, men and women from more than seventy-five countries have signed onto the plan. It uniquely focuses on ways women’s role in the democratic process is vital to the reform, renewal, and modernization of political parties.

One of the most inspiring of these efforts is Win With Women. I know it sounds like they give dating tips for guys, but actually it is a global initiative that aims to increase women’s participation and political leadership. It rests on the premise that freedom is impossible in any society where half the population is marginalized, patronized, brutalized, or silenced. It rests on the principle that democracy is impossible unless women are treated as full citizens, both under law and by practice. It recognizes that democracies can only be created from the ground up. It is not only the President or the Prime Minister who counts; it’s also the other Ministers, the Cabinet members, the legislators, the judges, the mayors, and the local politicians and administrators as well. I find it absolutely wonderful to see how that effort has grown in a short amount of time.

The Win With Women global initiative now draws activists from sixty-five countries and is being tested in every part of the world. I have been struck by one thing in particular, how every aspect of the initiative reinforces the others. We have helped women convene across party lines, identifying the issues of mutual concern that transcend their ideological differences. We’ve helped women in politics to expand their numbers, recruiting activists and candidates who might otherwise stand on the sidelines. We’ve taught the real world skills of operating the dinner party, establishing alliances, and putting women forward to speak for themselves in their communities. We’ve taught practical skills in organizing electioneering. Helping women navigate every step of the electoral process and in supporting all of these things would’ve encouraged women to step up front in their own arenas, driving forward the great wave of democracy that is still going a thousand places.

I have to mention to you that when I was driving here this evening; tomorrow I am going to a NDI board meeting and I was reading through my book that I got to prepare me for the board for tomorrow and one of the pieces in the book was a report on what had happened in Kuwait in June. And in June for the first time, women got to vote and in June for the first time they got to vote, twenty-seven women ran for office. They only had a month to get ready so they were running against the same thing we run against here, the incumbency of the guys. They were running against a system that ideologically in many instances, precludes them, they are too liberal, from becoming a part of the process. None of them won. But they all got in there and made the point that they wanted to participate. And eventually they will succeed in getting their voices heard from the inside of government.

In some other places. In Algeria, two of the Win With Women participants and women from six other political parties collaborated to create a petition to their government. It was one of the first times Algeria had witnessed this type of cross-party cooperation. In Columbia, women and men from liberal and conservative democratic parties have embarked on internal party reform measures to ensure that women actually participate in party decisions. A Win With Women Campaign Regional Campaign School was just completed for women from seven countries in the Middle East and included fourteen Iraqis. In fact, I was invited to be in Austria as we speak. There is another one of these groups going on from the 11th to the 18th of this month to deal again with a campaign school in Austria where people are coming in from literally all over Eastern Europe and from the Middle East.

What is most moving to me in these efforts is the courage and fortitude of those involved. It is hard enough to get women elected here in the U.S. while encompassing stumbling blocks. But in many of these countries, women risk violence against them, their families, and their movements. They even risk assassination for their roles to help open democracy’s doors. Their commitment is truly heroic because there are so many barriers. The temptation is strong to stand aside while others work hard of breaking down those barriers, but they don’t so we cant either. To me, they represent our true inspiration. They remind us that if we don’t stand up, others will stay in their seats. We cannot do until we try.

When that concept takes hold, it can snowball. We saw that as I mentioned earlier in Africa. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is an old friend of mine and when I met her in 1985 and asked her to join the Board of the International Institute for Women’s Political Leadership, she was in exile from Liberia. She had been in prison for protesting the government and she was planning on one day returning and running for President. Now I have to tell you that in 1985, many of us thought that was anything but doable. But here we are twenty years later and I am inspired and grateful that Ellen did it, but she didn’t do it alone. It was the women of Liberia who had their voices heard. It was the women in Liberia who were fed up with corruption and government. It was the women of Liberia who wanted to see the economy improve. It was the women of Liberia who put their trust in Ellen because they thought and they think that she would do a better job because she is a woman and also because she also happens to have a doctorate in economics. In fact, to celebrate her inauguration NDI hosted a forum in Liberia with more than two hundred and fifty African women. They joined President Johnson-Sirleaf to discuss the status of women in the region. So it’s not only the people in political office who make the difference. It’s the voters who make the difference.

That kind of progress reminds me, reminds us, that the subject of women in politics today is far more than just a numbers game of percentages and people who hold political office. As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, it is a necessary part of the dialogue in how we as a world are dealing with the problems and challenges that face us. It has all to do with what we want the world to look like for our children and our grandchildren.

As Americans considering the futility of our relationship with the rest of the world, this new set of voices and approaches seems evermore needed and important. Our nation’s global alliances aren’t today by any reckoning more strained than at any time in recent history. Iraq is, by the administration, on the verge of a civil war, if it is not already there. American causalities stream in daily and we’ve committed to an open-ended military presence with no limits. Elsewhere in the Middle East with the Palestinians, we face a mass presence and strength and confident Hezbollah, which our leaders neither understood nor foresaw. Which has now altered the landscape of the peace process. In Iran and also North Korea, the nuclear threat grows daily. At home, every year since 2000, our nation’s deaths increases now reaching stratosphere proportions. From Katrina to famine in cropped foods, we have seen the results of climate change for a decade, our leaders have argued it wasn’t happening, it wasn’t important and it needed further study. We have people in the White House and in Congress being indicted for everything from corruption to perjury to larceny. It’s mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling that the President’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor was arrested for shoplifting. Now is it just me? But it seems to me that this is a pretty good argument for considering broadening the gene pool just a tad. No offense, but I do think we deserve better. No offense to the testosterone team at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but new blood is needed.

If ever there was a time when the world and our nation needs new voices and new values, new approaches and sensitivity, this is it. Politics is the arena where we have the greatest hope of making lasting, significant, and permanent changes in our lives and those of our children. Politics gives us the power to make a difference. I am reminded of one of the things that was recognized at the Fourth World Conference of Women in Beijing in 1995. The platform that came out of that meeting very specifically addressed the need to involve more women in government. Indeed we want to the see the empowerment of government women throughout the world. And I for one, want to see that empowerment and I believe that it will come with time. Now it may not be in my lifetime, but it will come.