For the first time in my voting life, I’m torn. In five days, I’ll need to pull a lever in a New York Democratic Primary that matters. And I don’t know what to do. I want to vote for Hillary. I want her to be electable. She moves me. And so does Barack. I like much of what both of them stand for. I want to speak out publicly for one of them. But who?

Every day this week feels heavy with meaning and momentum. Take yesterday. My Wednesday begins with the forum I created for More magazine (“If Hillary Wins…”) going live. On my way to the luncheon to celebrate Susan Morrison’s new book 30 Ways of Looking at Hillary, scrambling for a public place with wireless so I can email the contributors and broadcast the news, I end up in the great phallic palace, Trump Tower.

At mid-day comes the parmasean emulsion, served up at the restaurant Daniel along with brilliance from Susan Morrison and a number of the contributors to her anthology. Between walnut-crusted fish filet and hot chocolate upside down cake, and chats with Leslie Bennetts and Leslie Savan, I jot down the following:

Among the many comments that served as impetus for Morrison’s book, she says, there’s this one: “I’d sooner vote for a ticket of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan that pull the lever for Hillary.” Gross. “I take Hillary personally, too personally,” writes Jane Kramer in the book. Yes, and don’t we all? Letty Cottin Pogrebin, repeating a sentiment oft overheard, notes “Hillary is Presidential, Obama is inspirational; it depends what you’re looking for.” Judith Thurman feels “Hillary is using her husband’s credit card.” Sorry, I don’t buy it. Susan Morrison: “Clearly, we haven’t all collectively figured out what we want from a woman leader.” Personally, I couldn’t agree more.

The day ends with my beloved Only Child coeditor (now a novelist!) sending out her “First and Last Political Email,” voicing her support for Hillary.  “Dear Friends,” Daphne writes:

I’m choosing to be thrilled that we have two such qualified candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, and in November I plan to fully throw my support behind whoever is nominated, as I’m sure will all of you (unless I’ve accidentally sent this to Republicans).

That said, I agree with the NYTimes: inspiring plans to start anew and beautiful rhetoric aside, I believe Hillary Clinton is the most qualified to hit the ground running next January. I’ve wavered on my support of her because, though her campaign keeps talking about experience, I’ve never been educated on the nitty-gritty details. So I was happily surprised to receive a quick and impressive rundown recently by one of her full-time volunteers.

I’ve gone through her website and weeded out all the promises and plans, which any candidate can persuasively and confidently lay out. Instead, I’ve highlighted her actual concrete accomplishments. Attached is a brief cheat sheet for anyone who, like me, is leaning toward Hillary, but can’t articulate why.

Feel free to delete it, or to continue your passionate campaigns for Obama, as I know many of you are, and with great reasons. Please don’t reply to this e-mail, and know that I will not send another political e-mail until 2012 (hopefully, not til 2016). I hope I haven’t stepped on any toes.

If anyone would like the cheat sheet, email me (my email’s at the bottom of the blog) and I’ll pass it on. And ok, Girl with Pen, embarrassment of riches notwithstanding, it’s time to take a stand. Stay tuned.

I’ve just GOT to tell you all about this crazyamazing event I went to yesterday to celebrate Susan Morrison’s new edited collection, 30 Ways of Looking at Hillary, thrown by More magazine, at the swanky restaurant Daniel. I’m still trying to figure out how to write about it–and not just the nine herb ravioli with Jerusalem arthichoke puree and parmesean emulsion.

In the meantime, check out coverage in New York Daily News. An NPR interview with Susan is downloadable here.

(PunditMom: Did you get your copy?)

Laura Mazer (left) is a powerhouse. She’s also my sister-in-pigtails. We’ll be doing a panel together at WAM!, in Cambridge, in March. Deets to follow soon. In the meantime, if in the SF-area and hungry for the secrets behind writing and selling your first book, I highly recommend this one-day intensive with Laura:

A one-day Media Bistro seminar, February 10, 10 AM-4 PM, Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, with Laura Mazer

Do you have a great idea for a book but don’t know how to go about writing and selling it? Or have you written a book but are stalled trying to get the attention of agents and publishers? Whether you’re just starting to develop your project or have already written the entire manuscript, this workshop will give you all the tools you need to get your first book project written, sold, published, and on the shelves in bookstores.

FEE: $125

To enroll, go to www.mediabistro.com and click on “courses,” or call 310.659.5668, or send an email to: learnwest.info@mediabistro.com

My friend and personal hero Stephanie Coontz is working on a cool new project and I’ve offered to help her recruit. She’s writing a study of the influence of Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. It’s a biography, not of Betty Friedan, but of the book itself – its history and influence over the decades (or, perhaps, its lack of influence after a particular date). Stephanie is eager to hear from younger women, as well as people who read the book when it first came out, about how it impacted them–or in some cases, among those who read it later, disappointed them–then.

If you are willing to talk about this, or can direct Stephanie to someone else who might, you can send your memories directly, or Stephanie can send you a few survey questions. Please address correspondence to coontzs@msn.com.

My o my what a day.

PunditMom bids a bientot to John Edwards, as he drops from the race. (Watch Edwards’ withdrawal speech here. We’ll miss you, John.)

Rebecca Traister goes on video with a round-up of the latest in anti-Hillary slogans and tees (Read more in Broadsheet).

Avis Jones-DeWeever revisits thoughts about Gloria Steinem’s NYTimes op-ed after hearing Gloria tell of the parts that got cut out.

Maya Angelou writes a poem in support of Hillary, and Salon’s Laura Miller sounds off on the battle for literary endorsements.

Caroline Kennedy speaks in a new ad that uses images of President Kennedy and Barack Obama, and Uncle Teddy and Barak appear together on The Today Show.

I’ve been thinking so much about Hillary these days. And lately, I’ve been thinking about how media coverage of an “intergenerational divide” in women’s support of her may be fueling, and not just documenting, discord among women across generations. I’m very eager to see some analysis of the age divide after primary season is over and we’ve all had a chance to chill.

My feelings about Hillary keep evolving. But no matter what you think of her, it’s still hard not to be intrigued by the prospect of a woman in the White House.

As I mentioned here recently, the February issue of More, my new favorite magazine (hey, I’m almost 40!), includes a forum in which I asked women who have themselves accomplished many firsts to weigh in on what a Hillary presidency might look like. I’m pleased to announce that the much extended, online version is now live. Check out the very different perspectives of Margaret Cho, Daphne Merkin, Lynn Harris, Dee Dee Myers, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Suzanne Braun Levine, Mary Catherine Bateson, Marie Wilson, Gloria Feldt, Pat Schroeder, Pepper Schwartz, Jane Swift, Nell Merlino, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Linda Hirshman, Kellyanne Conway, and Seema Gahlaut–and please feel free to share the link! The forum is rich–far richer than the squabbles we keep hearing about in the news–and I feel it’s so very important to infuse substance, even if speculative, as is the case of this forum, into the public conversation. So, have at it. Please join the conversation and share your comments over at More’s site.

And for an interesting More article on Hillary and the age divide, don’t miss “Our Hillary Problem”. Here, Katherine Lanpher interviews Donna Brazille and asks why some older, elite women voters are ambivalent on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. I don’t need to refer you to articles on younger women’s ambivalence, because you’ve probably all read them by now.

So as promised, a bit about my experience participating in the Progressive Women’s Voices Project, a new media training and spokesperson program from the Women’s Media Center to connect media professionals with media-savvy women experts in a variety of fields. Funded by a grant from the NoVo Foundation, the program provides its participants with intensive media training and ongoing support “to promote their perspective and message into the national dialogue.”

Let me first say that the WMC–founded by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan–is graced with an amazingly talented staff. The joint expertise of our trainers (Carol Jenkins, Glennda Testone, and Kathy Vermazen) knocked my socks off. On camera practice with these women? Invaluable. Learning from women with tremendous experience being out there in the public eye? Priceless. To wit: Board member Gloria Feldt shared savvy wisdom about the importance of embracing controversy, and Gloria Steinem shared an adage that has stayed with me: “Progress lies in the direction you haven’t been.”

The group of participants is in a word, well, powerful. Aside from soaking up massive doses of inspiration from these women and some of the best messaging training I’ve seen, we supplemented whatever knowledge we already had about a range of media tools–including blogging. And, as readers know, whenever I go somewhere where an experienced blogger shares tips on blogging, I like to pass them on. See one, do one, teach one and all that. Emily McCann of The Motherhood and the Been There Clearinghouse stopped by on Sunday to share her know-how with us and here’s some of what I gleaned:

-Want to post images in your blog, legally? In addition to Wikipedia and Photos from the Library of Congress on Flickr, other sources for open source images include Creative Commons, also at Flickr, and Photobucket.

-Seen some term or techy acronym on a blog recently and had no clue what it meant? Check out blogossary, a site billed as the blogosphere’s dictionary.

-Ready to create your own wiki? Check out pbwiki and wetpaint. (Confession: I came home and created one right away. I’m hooked.)

-Lastly, two hugely popular blogs that I hadn’t heard of and sound interesting include How to Change the World Blog, and 37days.

And speaking of changing the world, did you know that more women than men are now online? And also, women are twice as likely as men to pass forward an idea about a campaign or a cause? More on that in a book coming out in June 2008 by another of the weekend’s speakers, Lisa Witter. The book is cleverly titled The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World–and How to Reach Them.

This little report is the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the trainings, each week we participate in an issues briefing conference call, with experts from different realms. This week’s call was with economist and President of Bennett College Dr. Julianne Malveaux. Today, the economy. Tomorrow, the world!

Ok, I’m getting carried away. It’s only been a week in The Program.

I’ll post here when the WMC posts a notice for future applications. To would-be pundits out there: Trust me. If you have the opportunity, this is something you don’t want to miss.

Some really great recap-blogging going on out there about the Progressive Women’s Voices Project that I’m feeling extremely humbled and honored to be participating in. Here’s Courtney Martin on the evening we all went to dinner and had a collective kiniption fit when the restaurant turned the channel from CNN (it was the night of the South Carolina primary) to the Sports Channel. Here’s Joanne Cronrath Bamberger on what you do when Gloria Steinem calls. And here’s Linda Lowan (of About.com’s Women’s Issues blog) on democracy in action. Thank you to these three for sharing their thoughts so far, and I promise to throw in soon too!

Check out this fresh take on those who are male, single and not your stereotype in the Canadian Press.

In sum, the article argues, a lot of attention gets paid to single women, who can cheer themselves with chick flicks, self-help books and shows like “Sex and the City,” which aim to empower female consumers to think of singledom as independence or self-reliance. But while single women have seemingly banded together to change their image in the popular culture, there’s been no such battle cry for men, who have a whole different set of stereotypes to fight: They’re confirmed bachelors, James Bond-style playboys, cranky old men or gay.

Ok, I get the point. But somehow this just isn’t resonating for me. Thoughts?

Two interesting tidbits about abortion in the news recently:

In American pop culture, the face of abortion is often a frightened teenager, nervously choosing to terminate an unexpected pregnancy. The numbers tell a far more complex story in which financial stress can play a pivotal role. Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion. Read more.

Second, as abortion rate drops (as we all know they have), use of RU-486 is on rise, as WaPo’s Rob Stein reports. On the market since 2000, more than 840,000 U.S. women have used mifepristone since it was approved, according to Danco Laboratories, which sells it. More than half of abortion providers now offer the option, a 70 percent increase from the first half of 2001, according the Guttmacher Institute. Yep, thirty-five years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, a pill that has largely faded from the rancorous public debate over abortion has slowly and quietly begun to transform the experience of ending a pregnancy in the United States. Read the rest.

(Thanks again to CCF for the heads up.)