When New York Governor appointed Kirsten Gillibrand to the United States Senate in early 2009 to replace Hillary Clinton’s New York seat in Congress, I felt a connection to her. She was born and raised in Upstate New York, which is where I was born and raised. She also had two young children, and her younger son was born the same year as my oldest son. I found it hard to imagine how a female politician could make it work so gracefully, but she then took it a step further by successfully winning a state-wide special election to maintain her seat in Congress. I thought she was a political woman who was sending working moms into the modern age.
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