So how do you keep up your passion for politics after you watch the GOP take over your state and your nation? Some of us just dropped out, others retired but Clare Giesen stays active and in the battle. For those of us who have known Clare for over 35 years we are not surprised by her position as the executive director of the National Women's Political Caucus. That group started in Houston in 1977 and will soon have its 30th birthday. Here is the Houston Chronicle story on Clare:

"TEXANS IN WASHINGTON

She has a passion for women's issues

Advocate's unusual résumé includes stint as a topless dancer

By GEBE MARTINEZ Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - There are three key traits that help define Clare Giesen.

One, she is a Texan. "When I was very young, obviously when I was learning to talk, I moved to Texas," she said, placing the emphasis on "obviously" with a pronounced Texas drawl.

Two, Giesen, 59, is a longtime advocate of women's issues and of candidates who seek to protect women's civil rights. "I wrote my (sociology) graduate thesis on topless dancing and became a participant-observer," she said. Yes, she worked her way through graduate school at the University of Houston as a topless dancer at Rembrandt's Paint Factory.

Which leads to point three. She likes to have a good time. "It was fuuun! I enjoyed that time of my life," Giesen said with a boisterous laugh, recalling her days at a job that had "total absolute freedom and no dress code."

Giesen showed equal exuberance about her days teaching sociology at local colleges, her work on local political campaigns, and her participation in the 2000 Clinton-Gore campaign and the Clinton administration.

Giesen now is executive director of the National Women's Political Caucus, a nonpartisan group founded in Houston more than three decades ago that supports women candidates who back abortion rights.

"Because of my knowledge of the cultural aspects of the women's movement, and my love of politics and passion for women's issues, it was a job I very much wanted," Giesen said. "I am very excited about women making their mark on this year's elections."

Her journey from Texas to Washington is filled with names of politicians she has worked for, mainly in Texas. Those who know her credit her political savvy and ability to network.

"She brings a kind of Texas energy and commitment to the cause," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. "She comes out of a political environment where she's been an activist on behalf of causes and candidates and she's very good. I have every reason to believe she's cut out of the same mold as my Texas women friends, and they are hard to keep up with."

Giesen was born in Superior, Wis. Her family moved to Port Arthur when she was an infant.

"I feel very blessed that I grew up with Midwest values I got from my parents, but thank God I got Texas culture," she said. (Her parents were "horrified" when she became a topless dancer, which is the only thing she regrets about the job.)

The inspiration of John F. Kennedy and her parents' values made Giesen an eager observer and later a participant in civil rights campaigns. While teaching sociology, she began volunteering for local political campaigns. The late Rep. Bob Eckhardt, a Houston Democrat, "is my political hero," she said, pointing to a photograph on her office wall of Eckhardt, then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Kennedy, taken in Houston on the eve of Kennedy's assassination.

During the 1980s, she served as chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Mike Andrews of Houston.

"Clare has an innate sense about politics," Andrews said. "She knows so many people."

Women soon became a focus of Giesen's political activities. She served as deputy campaign manager for Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire, worked for the election of Democratic Gov. Ann Richards and joined the Clinton-Gore campaign.

There she worked with Mayor Bill White, who was chairing the Clinton-Gore campaign in Harris County.

"We came within a percentage point of defeating the president (George H.W. Bush) in his home county," she said.

In 2001, Giesen joined the Clinton administration in the Energy Department. Afterward, she became an energy consultant. But her passion for politics led her back to grassroots networking at the women's caucus.

Her group joined others in an unsuccessful fight to block the U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.

Their advancement to the high court remains one of her concerns. "It's the reason why we want more and more women in the electoral process."

Giesen's job keeps her busy, she said. But she looks forward to returning to Texas.

"I am going to open up a bait shop on the Gulf of Mexico," she said, even though she does not know much about fishing. "I am a salt-of-the-earth kind of a person," she said, "and I love Texans."