C-ya

Fine bum's rush tribute to Hillary by two Postettes today. Clinton campaign engenders respect:

Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't shatter what she likes to call the nation's "highest glass ceiling." Not quite.

But with her dogged and nearly successful run at a presidential nomination, she put a crack in that ceiling.

With her head.

"History will look back on this as a defining moment for women," said Regina Cowles, owner of Regina Cucina sauces, who describes herself as a card-carrying feminist — but not a Clinton supporter.

Remember the name: Regina Cucina!

While the curtain is about to come down on her run, Clinton has accomplished at least one thing: She has moved the gender debate beyond the tired "Is-America-ready-for-a-woman- president?"

Obama's going to slow the rise of the oceans.

"Hillary Clinton paved the way for the next woman," said Cindy Parmenter, a former journalist and spokeswoman for Roy Romer during his terms as Colorado governor.

Obama's going to cool down the earth.

Reaching for unprecedented political heights, Clinton faced unprecedented pressure. Had she fallen on her face, or her campaign been a dismal failure, it could have set back the hopes of every double-X-chromosomed political aspirant for untold election cycles to come.

Instead, supporters and nonsupporters alike say she did just the opposite.

"I just think she blazed yet another trail," said Lucille Echohawk, a community activist and Clinton supporter.

Maybe she should go into construction, all the trail-blazing and road-paving she's done. Colorado ex-governor's wife Dottie Lamm sneaks in a little spin and a little smear:

When a heckler yelled at Clinton: "Iron my shirts," Lamm said, "that went by the wayside. Suppose someone said to Obama, 'Shine my shoes.' Racism was neither expressed [whaaaaa?] nor permitted, although we don't know what's coming in the future."

No, we don't. Hill as we'll cherish her:

As Clinton crisscrossed the country, downing boilermakers, tearing up, promising health care for Americans and big trouble for Iranians if they don't shape up — and never once ironing anyone's shirts — she, indeed, prompted every imaginable reaction.

And not just among women.

As he shepherded members of a church youth group in a downtown park Tuesday, Dante Tinner, 24, reflected on how Clinton's campaign changed his idea of what is possible.

"I never thought I'd see a woman run for president. It made me think anyone can do anything."

Perhaps not a thought one wants to encourage in the shepherd of a church youth group.