Hillary Clinton's historic day

Surrendering a dream — a president of their gender — is hard for millions of American women, especially those born into an age of feminist-powered political advancement, say Sonoma County women who backed Hillary Clinton for president.

“They feel it’s their last chance in their lifetime to see a woman president,” said Martha Kowalick of Occidental, a lifelong Democrat and Clinton campaign volunteer. “Its hard for them to let go.”

It’s also a hard fact of political life, Sonoma County Clinton supporters said Tuesday as their favorite — the New York senator and former first lady — prepared to speak in prime time at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

“We had to get over it and move on,” said Lee Hunt, a Cloverdale lawyer. And most have, Hunt and others said, faulting the media for fixating on the pro-Clinton faction that allegedly won’t campaign or vote for Barack Obama.

“I don’t know anyone like that,” said Jenni Klose, a Santa Rosa attorney and Clinton volunteer. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“The media are making a mountain out of a mole hill,” Hunt said. “Unity is not a very good story.”

Klose believes feminists will fall in behind the Obama because there is only thread of policy difference between him and Clinton, but a gulf between Obama and McCain.

“I’m as determined a Hillary Clinton supporter as you’ll find, but I am enthusiastically behind Obama,” Assemblywoman Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa said. “We have to end the years of Republican authoritarian rule.”

Like the others, Evans was disappointed that Clinton’s campaign came close, but fell short. “That’s a common occurrence for women,” Evans said.

Nonetheless, women have made great strides in her lifetime, Evans said, noting that she helped Karen Bass become the first African-American woman speaker of the California Assembly — and the first to hold such a post nationwide.

“I have no reason to think we’ll quit now,” Evans said.