This morning I was reading the Wall Street Journal (an excellent paper if you ignore the editorial pages) and came across a photo of the four candidates battling it out in Wisconsin to be the Republican candidate for the Senate. I burst out laughing: they all looked the same. Same grey suit. Same red tie. Same mid-brown-to-grey hair. Same hair cut–though two parted on the left and two on the right. All white. All boys. The similarities were so striking that for one wild moment I thought it might be a joke. (See the photo for yourself here. ETA: I forgot, you need a subscription for that. Sorry.)

I drank more tea, regained perspective, and moved on.

Later, at my desk, I read in The Advocate (also an excellent paper, though I thought their recent piece on quiltbag biography was rather shoddy–why so few women?), that the Democratic candidate who will face the grey-suited, red-tied Republican in the Senate race will be…Tammy Baldwin.

I burst out laughing again, this time in delight. My delight was compounded when I read that Baldwin will be the first candidate endorsed and supported by the lesbian Super PAC, (LPAC).

But here’s the thing. Baldwin (an advocate of social justice, women’s rights, and marriage equality) will need every penny she can get. Her Republican opponent (not an advocate of social justice, very probably anti-abortion, and doubtless against same-sex marriage) will be funded by people like the Koch brothers. So if you want to see the first lesbian (the first out queer person) Senator this year, and if you have some money to spare, go give it to LPAC. And let the games begin…