Scenes from a Hillary Clinton watch party

Tuesday’s impromptu election-night watch party was probably the largest concentration of post-menopausal women in Tallahassee history. An observation I shared with many of the women there. No one was insulted. We laughed.

No, there wasn’t a whole lot of estrogen in the room, but there was a giddiness as the crowd of about 75 (including maybe five or so men) cheered when MSNBC called New Jersey for Hillary Clinton — propelling her into history as the first woman nominated for president by a major party.

Many in this crew drinking beers, eating greasy bar food and posing with two Hillary cutouts (blue pantsuit, or aqua pantsuit, take your pick) were campaign ground troops — the ones who will knock on doors, (wo)man phone banks and wave signs for Hillary this election year, and probably did the same on the first go-round in 2008.

And after eight years of waiting — sometimes impatiently — it was Hillary’s moment. And their moment, too.

Much of the country collectively grasped their pearls when Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem took young women to task for eschewing Clinton in favor of Bernie-lovin’ — “… a lot of you younger women think it’s done,” Albright said regarding the fight for women’s equality. “It’s not done. There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”

But these women got it. Because they lived it.

Some were old enough to be at the tip of the spear — stirring up trouble when abortion was straight-up illegal and the glass ceiling was a LOT lower. Others were like me, trodding a path that, while not yet well worn, was at least blazed for a decade or so before we got there. And still others sat on the sidelines, doing what was expected of them — teaching, nursing, marriage, motherhood — and sometimes enjoying the benefits of what their bolder sisters were fighting for on the front lines.

For 40 years now, Hillary has supported unpopular positions now taken for granted, been vilified and abused and judged for crap that no one would ever think of paying attention to if she were a man. She’s spent her adult life DOING things. Sure, she’s stepped in it along the way, but, like I say … if you don’t do anything, you don’t do anything wrong.

Hillary is us. And Tuesday night, we won.