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"FacebookPinterest\n\nShriver is the first lady of the state of California, leader of the Women\u2019s Conference, a former television journalist, and the daughter of 1972 vice presidential nominee Sargent Shriver.\n\nWhen you look back on this election, what do you want to have contributed to the effort?\n\n Well, I think my contribution was making sure that I wasn\u2019t silent. I think, at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, What role did I play? Did I use my own voice? Was I unafraid to suffer the consequences that come one way or the other? And for me, it was really a decision. I had always been and still am an admirer of Hillary Clinton. It was a real agonizing struggle between my gender, my head, and my heart. And then, as time went on, my heart really took over, even before Barack announced. I felt my main goal was to bring people together. And having been a Democrat in a Republican administration in California, I\u2019ve seen how difficult it is in politics to bring people together. I\u2019ve seen it firsthand. And if that isn\u2019t your mantra\u2014to be about trying to find ways of bringing political parties together\u2014if that\u2019s not the number one or two thing on your list, it\u2019ll never happen. I know how difficult it is. I see it every day.\n\nLast February you joined your cousin Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama for a rally at UCLA that helped cut into Clinton\u2019s lead in the California primary. But you had some reservations about speaking there.\n\n It was a big moment for me, anyway. And I think that many of the people in the room had the same struggles I had in getting there. Certainly all the women that I talked to found great strength in being there, great strength in following their own guts. So it was one of those things where there was a moment of fear when I went into the room.\u2026\n\nWhat were you afraid of?\n\n Well, I was fearful that I wasn\u2019t supporting a woman. There were a lot of people who felt, &amp;quot;How could you do that?&amp;quot; I run the largest women\u2019s conference in the country, one that supported somebody else. I was married to somebody who had a completely different view, and it was kind of across town with somebody else. I had spent the last two elections in California campaigning for a Republican. I was walking into a room with 10,000 Democrats. I didn\u2019t know how that would work. So there were a lot of things, a lot of competing voices in my head. It wasn\u2019t easy-breezy.\n\nYour uncle Teddy\u2019s convention speech was a moving moment for just about anyone who watched it, but how did it feel for someone who knows him and knows how much this meant to him? \n\n I think any time you love somebody and you see them struggle physically, emotionally, spiritually, to achieve something&amp;amp;#x2013;it\u2019s emotional, right? And I knew what was involved in giving that speech. I knew what his day had been like. I knew what it meant on many levels. And to see him be able to give it was awe-inspiring. You look at somebody like that and your whole life with them passes before your eyes, and you know how much they\u2019re struggling to be right there.\n\nClick here to read more provocative, revealing interviews with the men and women behind the most epic presidential race of our lifetime."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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