On the recordMarch 29, 2011
I thank Senator Mikulski and Senator Boxer. Mr. President, I do want to talk about this remarkable woman because I think, as has been mentioned before, her loss is being felt throughout America for many different reasons. She was a trailblazer, and she was one of the great female role models of her generation. I wrote a book in 2004 called ``American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country.'' It was to profile the women who were the earliest trailblazers in different fields--education, sports, politics, journalism. Then I interviewed contemporary women who were still breaking barriers in those fields. In the public service chapter, I profiled Margaret Chase Smith because she was the longest serving woman elected to the Senate in her own right at the time and she was a true trailblazer. I then interviewed Sandra Day O'Connor, our first woman Supreme Court Justice, and Geraldine Ferraro, our first woman nominee for Vice President of a major party. I asked Gerry Ferraro in my interview with her: What was your most important trait for success? And she said: I think the ability to work hard and, if something doesn't work, to learn from the mistake and move on. That's what's happened with my own life. It goes to the personal side from watching my mother, who moved on after becoming a widow with two kids to support. She was thirty-nine years old. . . . Then I watched her move on and do whatever was necessary to get the job of educating her children done.…
