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Sometimes, when the mood is right and the cast-iron bathtubs are placed on a plateau where we can watch the sunset, I whisper to my wife: "Is it too late to rescind a woman's right to vote?"

Initially, she tried to drown me. Recently, however, she's attempted to lob electrical items into my tub. Toasters, clock radios, large flat-screen TVs, this and that.

But I'm zee kidder, ou¡?

As we all know by now, the "soccer mom" vote carries a lot of sway in candidates' planning these days. And politicians' appeals to that interest are, more and more often, dipped in kiddy-batter and served with a side of co-dependency.

That is to say, politicians of both genders have figured out they can have their sleazy way with this bloc of voters, if they promise to make safer - check any that apply - our schools, our streets, our air, our water, our toys, our wars, our trees, our detergents, our conversations, our food, our pedicures, our . . . the list is practically endless.

Basically, promise Utopia for the sake of our children, and you pick up more than a few votes.

OK, that's probably a slight globalization. There are lots of women who drift away from the Maureen Dowd-approved positions and ask themselves: "Aren't increased Social Security taxes like applying a Band-Aid to a compound fracture? And wouldn't nationalized health care be even more expensive than all of today's entitlement benefits rolled together?"

But just as women's clout in our marketplace has driven companies to reorient how they approach their advertising, women's muscle in the voting booth has likewise brought about a change in not just political ads but in political posturing as well.

Today politicians, particularly liberals, are more than likely to promise great things for our children if only they can raise taxes or spend more, or, in the case of New Mexico, persuade voters to open up the state Permanent Fund "in case of a crisis" with our schools. Our schools, of course, are where a lot of kids hang out, and so an amendment here that barely passed did so on the wings of the soccer mom vote.

The bottom line is that politicians, usually Democrats, have discovered you can play on women's emotions and get all sorts of wishes granted. Not every woman, of course, but enough.

This might be the single biggest reason Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic candidate for president. Polls show a sadly high number of women admitting they will vote for her simply because she's a woman.

But Clinton has never really done anything, save hang on to her husband's apron strings. That does have her on the verge of becoming the subject of a Ken Burns' documentary - probably as good an explanation as any, one imagines, for her, um, - tolerance of her husband's serial affairs.

But it's hardly enough reason to elect her president. Regardless of gender.