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The name Jared Polis may not ring a bell. But by November 2018 it should.

As a gubernatorial candidate, the businessman and politician is championing a boldly blue platform in the traditionally purple state of Colorado. And he just took a big step toward the history books.

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.


On June 26, the 43-year-old father of two — who's focused his campaign on issues like Medicare for all and universal public preschool — defeated his Democratic primary challengers and is headed to the general election with the wind at his back.

If he succeeds in November, Polis would be the country's first openly gay man to be elected governor.

Jim McGreevey, governor of New Jersey from 2002 to 2004, came out while serving, but only during his resignation speech after scandal ended his time in office. Oregon's Kate Brown, who is bisexual, became the first openly LGBTQ person to be elected governor in 2015.

Should Polis defeat Republican Walker Stapleton in the fall, he'd be the first male governor chosen by voters while being openly gay.

Polis, holding his son, Caspian, and Polis' husband, Marlon Reis, in 2013. Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images.

"Leadership is not about dividing people — it's about finding ways to bring people together," Polis said during a June 26 speech that largely rebuked President Donald Trump's agenda.

Polis made it clear he's not fond of Trump's right-hand man either.

"I think [electing an LGBTQ governor] really gives Colorado an opportunity to stick a thumb in the eye of Mike Pence, whose view of America is not as inclusive as where America is today," Polis said in a speech.

That's putting it lightly.

Watch Polis' speech accepting his party's nomination below:

On Aug. 1, 2016, Tokyo made history by electing Yuriko Koike, its first female governor.

Koike is a groundbreaking political veteran with cabinet experience who ran for a head of state position in 2008. Sound familiar?


Tokyo is with her. Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images.

Not only was this a big win for her (she defeated her closest opponent by over a million votes), but it's also a huge win for Tokyo, a city that doesn't have the greatest track record on women's rights.

"Hillary used the word 'glass ceiling,'" Koike said in 2008. "But in Japan, it isn't glass, it's an iron plate."

This isn't Koike's first tussle with that iron plate. She served previously as Tokyo's first female defense chief and launched a campaign in 2008 to become Japan's first woman prime minister.

When it comes to politics, the first thing on Koike's to-do list is making Tokyo better for women.

She wants to overcome the massive childcare shortages plaguing the city, and enact policies that ensure "both women and men can shine in Tokyo."

Koike drinking tea with former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images.

She's also made a point of praising other female world leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, and most recently, Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's newly-elected female president.

Koike is a vocal critic of North Korea and a green candidate with a focus on the environment. She served as Japan's environment minister from 2003 to 2005, where she took creative approaches to energy conservation, such as a widely adopted program encouraging male businessmen not to wear suit jackets to work (so that office air conditioners could be comfortably turned down.)

She also cosplayed once as Sally the Witch, which is just kind of awesome:

Among her biggest responsibilities as governor will be helping to shape up Tokyo's 2020 Olympic hosting duties, which are currently wrapped in multiple corruption scandals.

Like any politician, she's not without a few controversial opinions.

Most notably, she was endorsed by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, an organization that seeks to revise history textbooks by downplaying Japan's involvement in war crimes and human trafficking during WWII.

In an op-ed voicing her support for textbook reform, she claimed that shifting national focus away from the antagonisms of the past would help avoid the wars of the future. It's a nice sentiment, but there's just something about George Santayana's quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," that rings just a bit truer.

Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images.

When she takes office, Koike will be one of only three women serving in a gubernatorial position in Japan.

Currently, only about 12% of parliament seats in Japan are held by women. And according to the Global Gender Gap Report, the country is ranked 101 out of 145 in terms of gender equality.

That's why her victory is so important. Change doesn't happen instantly, it happens one step at a time, one election at a time, one vote at a time. When women are in politics and are elected to prominent positions of power, the world sees the benefits.

Koike with Yukari Sato and Kuniko Inoguchi, two other female lawmakers in Tokyo. Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images.

Science agrees. When women are elected, gender gaps close, productivity increases, and most importantly, the world gets female role models — which leads to more women in politics and positions of power.

Now, millions of women and men in Tokyo, are living in a city that has one more female leader. She may not be perfect, and she may not solve all of Tokyo's problems, but no candidate is or could. What's important is that she's the first, and she won't be the last. Not to mention, the neat thing about barriers is they never become unbroken.

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3 things Nikki Haley said in the State of the Union response we all should hear.

You may not agree with all — or even any, for that matter — of her policies, but this needs to be heard.

Following President Obama's State of the Union address, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave the GOP response.

And it was pretty unexpected. While she spent some time criticizing President Obama, Democratic policies, and even the Black Lives Matter movement; she also dropped a few truths that we could all consider incorporating into our lives.

You may not agree with the policies she supports, and you may not find the language perfect, but the sentiment feels genuine.


You can read the complete transcript here, but below are three of the speech's highlights.

Gov. Haley signed the order to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds on July 9, 2015. Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images.

1. We need to be honest with ourselves.

One of the most surprising aspects of Gov. Haley's speech was how conciliatory it was. Gone was the hyperpartisan rhetoric that flows from both sides, and for once, it was replaced with acknowledgement that neither party is 100% responsible for all of the challenges facing our country.

"We need to be honest with each other, and with ourselves: while Democrats in Washington bear much responsibility for the problems facing America today, they do not bear it alone. There is more than enough blame to go around.

We as Republicans need to own that truth. We need to recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in America's leadership. We need to accept that we've played a role in how and why our government is broken.

And then we need to fix it."



GIFs from ABC News.

2. Racism has no place in society.

In response to the shootings in Paris and in San Bernardino, several of the 2016 presidential candidates made calls to restrict immigration and refugee admission. Gov. Haley would seem to suggest that it is not the right path. Giving in to xenophobia takes us away from the values we hold so dear.

"During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation.

No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country."

3. We need to tone it down.

This goes along with a point made during the president's address. Just because something is loud, that does not mean it is correct. This would seem to be a direct reference to some of the more over-the-top rhetoric being used by some of the Republican candidates for president.

"In many parts of society today, whether in popular culture, academia, the media, or politics, there's a tendency to falsely equate noise with results.

Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume. When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. And that can make a world of difference."

Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, take time to consider some of these words.

Because we're more alike than we are different, and we really should all be able to work together.