Having women in office is vital to the health of our democracy because women play a unique role in our society. By and large, women are still the primary caregivers in families, even as we have taken our place in the workforce.

I think having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House is going to send a very wonderful lesson to the American public that women can be strong, they can be tough, they can be effective, and they can lead this country as political leaders.

At EMILY's List, we're in the business of expanding the political power of women.

It took us 200 years to elect the first Democratic woman to the Senate in her own right, and that's Barbara Mikulski. Six years later, we had a grand slam: We elected four new Democratic women to the Senate. Sen. Mikulski now has some company.

We're building an independent political program that can run electoral politics and then turn on a dime to hold our leaders to task, in case they suddenly develop that old case of amnesia! We'll be there to remind them what they promised and who they promised to work for!

Even people who aren't engaged on the actual battlefield - the effects of war reach out like tentacles into families, into economies, into the changing geography, into politics. It shakes up everything.

True partisans draft legislation that gives themselves everything and their enemies nothing. They love bills that repulse and even disgust the other side. Today's politics have become an all-or-nothing, black-or-white, zero-sum game - it's not a contact sport but a blood sport.

Every U.S. citizen should have the assurance that the U.S. government will come vigorously to their defense in a time of need, especially when they are unjustly tried in a foreign country.