Many families have one, the little girl, the grandchild who’s fun to buy for. She loves her dolls and teddy bears, but she demands a chance to play legos with her sibling. She has a wardrobe of ballet and princess dresses, lives in them regardless of weather and occasion. However, she can get down and dirty, rolling on the floor in a no-holds barred wrestling war with her otherwise loving brother.

Once she got interested, reading was a breeze. She’s picking up literacy with casual ease, but what she really likes is to play with her vast army of Barbies, dressing them and making them assume various princess-type characters.

She’s a power-player; from the time she sat up and looked around, this child understood manipulation…and used it. Fortunately she’s a benevolent tyrant. If she thinks she’s made you angry, she instantly apologizes and charms you back under her spell.

She’s an adroit debater. At a little-kids’ book club event, she insisted on giving a book report. When a small boy in the crowd shouted, “You’re just a baby. Sit down,” tiny Sadie replied sternly, “I am not a baby. I’m a HUMAN!”

She has a conscious and active agenda, knows what she wants. A couple of weeks ago she refused to go to church. When asked why all of a sudden she didn’t like what had formerly been a favorite destination, she said firmly, “Too much singing!”

This is a funny little squirrel. She entertains us but doesn’t allow anyone to laugh at her. Misunderstanding the word, and having had no experience with the rodent in question, she referred to Groundhog Day as Brown Dog Day. When everyone laughed, she put her hands on her hips, drew her brows together and announced, “No more laughing. I’m not funny. I’m not silly. I’m Sadie.”

This powerfully intelligent, delightful, beautiful little girl will grow up before we know it. She’ll look around at her world and make choices. I hope that should she want to be the executive of the greatest super power in the history of Planet Earth, she won’t have to build a whole new road to that destination. I hope that by then we’ve had at least one female president to blaze the trail, deal with the prejudice.

By the time Sadie’s old enough to want to be president, should that happen, I want the question to be, “Is she smart enough, self-controlled enough, experienced enough, sufficiently able to manage public opinion, inspired with a life list of worthy enough goals for this country?” I hope we’ve gone far beyond, “She’s a woman? Hahaha. Forget it, brother.”

Hillary Clinton’s capable of being a good president. That’s one reason why I’m going to vote for her. The other reason is that I want her to go first, now, at least thirty years before Sadie might take an interest in politics. For the sake of all the lively, smart, charming little American girls who someday might want to serve this nation in its highest office, we need to get over that first bump in the road…we need to go ahead and elect a woman in order to see that such an event is not only survivable, it can be the best thing we’ve done for at least eight years.