Once upon a time, in a cold and bitter land, an exhausted, dispirited woman cried.

Lo and behold, her tears brought forth a miracle. She won the New Hampshire primary.

In reality, the incident at a Portsmouth coffee shop was just 11 months ago, but in political time, Hillary Clinton's moment seems like it took place a long time ago.

If you'll recall, Clinton's candidacy was a big deal then. For the first time in U.S. history, a person of the Venusian persuasion in the White House was a strong possibility.

Her having been married to it, however, was used to handicap her by those who preferred that a fresh candidate without the spousal connection - and baggage, for that matter - reach that mountaintop.

But Hillary was the “;it girl”; of the hour. She had pulled up her sleeves to show intellectual muscle, bumped heads with the best of the policy-wonk boys, got hit as hard as the men and downplayed the femininity bit

  Then she cried like a girl. All of a sudden, the woman who had been fixed to the idea that to survive she had to act like a Martian was seen as human, her vulnerability deemed appealing to voters. Political savants, including her husband, attributed the New Hampshire victory to the episode and anecdotal information leaned to the theory.

How confusing it must be to have to step toward political achievement on a thin thread that unspools so unpredictably.

As women have made inroads into work places and professions, choices are no longer about home-making and baking cookies vs. occupying the corner office, or even, as the mantra goes, having it all. They are now an ample menu of what women want, whatever is most fulfilling financially and emotionally.

  Yet for all those gains, the political map for women remains uncharted territory.

Expectations in the early days had been that women were less likely to wage dirty campaigns, but over the years, several have buried that notion deep, like North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole who faked her rival's voice denying the existence of a Christian god for a shameless TV ad.

Which brings us to Sarah Palin.

Palin was supposed to have been the new brand of unabashedly girlie female candidates and there's no doubt she is popular among certain quarters, including a coterie of conservative male pundits whose hearts she's set a-flutter.

But winks and affected coquettishness aside, she's proved an old-school, slash-and-burn politician whose failings were, by turn, disputed, rationalized or blamed on others.

Palin has been held up as one reason Republicans lost the White House. She was a liability, as much for her inexperience and lack of knowledge as for the misjudgment of the men who chose her.

  Less than a week after bolting from her running mate, the Alaska governor has gone on a make-over mission that will have to be extreme for her to shed the impressions of her two-month show. Her charisma has yet to be matched by achievement, her picture not out of place next to a dictionary definition of “;blind ambition.”;

Just as someday has arrived for an African-American man, it will come for women. It may not be in Hillary's future and hopefully not in Sarah's. But look for it. The crossing over the gender bridge is just around the bend.