GOP women: A minority in a minority By: Erika Lovley May 10, 2009 07:01 PM EST Women make up almost 51 percent of the U.S. population but less than 10 percent of the House and Senate GOP â a gender disconnect that could make the Republicansâ climb back to power even steeper than it would be otherwise. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) notices that sheâs part of a shrinking minority every time she heads to the Senate floor for a vote. Republican women in the House say they feel the problem â literally â when their male colleagues nudge them to the front of GOP press conferences to break up the solid lines of middle-aged white men in neckties. Indeed, Rep. Kay Granger â the first and only Republican woman to represent Texas in the House â says Republican women have to work to make sure theyâre even represented at public events in the first place. âWe pass the word to make sure weâre there at this ceremony or that photo-op, because there are fewer of us and weâre spread more thinly,â Granger said. âWeâre working in a very successful manner, and we want to make sure thatâs shown.â The numbers make that difficult. Out of 435 members of the House, just 17 are Republican women. Of 99 sitting senators, just four are Republican women. Of course, there are fewer Republicans than Democrats of either gender in the two houses. But even on a percentage basis, Republicans suffer a gender gap. Twenty-two percent of House Democrats are women, but only 9.5 percent of House Republicans are. In the Senate, nearly 23 percent of the Democrats are women, but only 10 percent of the Republicans are. The problem isnât new; former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) remembers being struck that no Republican women were on stage while President George W. Bush signed a ban on partial-birth abortions in 2003. âI looked at the stage and said, âYouâve got to be kidding me,ââ said Musgrave, who was sitting in the audience. But the imbalance seems to be getting worse. While the Republicans had Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on their presidential ticket in 2008, Democratic women far outnumbered Republican women as general-election candidates for the House in November. There were 96 Democratic women on the ballot â but only 37 Republican women. In 2006, 70 percent of the women competing in major party primaries were Democrats, according to Laurel Elder, an associate political science professor and gender expert at Hartwick College in New York,. And, she says, only five Republican women have chaired congressional committees since 1995. Democratic women currently hold four chairmanships in the Senate and three more in the House â plus the speakerâs gavel, in the hands of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In addition, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) chairs the Joint Economic Committee. Republican women who have made it to the top â women such as Snowe and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Lynn Jenkins and Virginia Foxx â say theyâve been warmly welcomed and mentored by the Republican leadership. But Elder said the GOP has to do more than just make female candidates feel welcome; itâs got to be aggressive in actively recruiting them. âRepublican women are more reluctant to throw their hat in the ring because they donât see a lot of women like themselves in leadership or on the news,â she said. âThis idea that the GOP is just going to treat everyone fairly hasnât worked. If the GOP wants more women, theyâre going to have to do more than just recruit women. They need to urge them to run.â National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) is trying to do that. âIf we are going to expand the playing field we must expand the party,â he said through a spokesman. âOn the candidate recruitment front, we continue to focus on finding highly qualified female candidates who can effectively convey the Republican message.â While Palin provided a high-profile role model for Republican women thinking of running for office, her experience was a double-edged sword. Lawmakers say the rough treatment Palin received showcased the nastiness of modern campaigns and underscored the notion that women are susceptible to the charge that theyâve been picked to run because theyâre a good demographic fit â and not because theyâre the most qualified. âFor Republican women to say, âThis is something I want to subject my family toâ â itâs a big role,â said Rep. Thelma Drake (R-Va.), who was one of the top political targets of left-wing organization MoveOn.org in 2006 and 2008. Drake lost her seat last year and says she is still angered by the effect scathing television ads had on her grandchildren. âItâs difficult to find people to run for office, and it will be more difficult in the future because of the tones in campaigns,â she said. The problem is also geographical. As political realignment shifts the GOP territory south, Elder said female candidates are vying to get elected in a region least hospitable to women, while Democrats are getting elected in the West and Northeast â areas that are more welcoming to female candidates. âIn the South, women have done very poorly. There are big differences in terms of political culture,â said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers Universityâs Center for American Women and Politics. âChange would mean letting in some voices that have not had a place at the table within the Republican Party. Right now the Democratic agenda is more in sync with women voters.â According to the centerâs analysis of exit-polling data, women backed Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden over Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin 56 percent to 43 percent. Male voters split their votes much more evenly, with 49 percent voting for Obama-Biden and 48 percent choosing McCain-Palin. Snowe says thereâs also a political dimension. As the Republican Party sheds moderates, it also sheds women. â[We] as a party are saying weâre not supporting Republican moderates. Thatâs a terrible message to send,â said Snowe, who with her Maine counterpart Susan Collins represents 50 percent of the Republican women in the Senate. âIt tells everyone else in America who might have an interest in running as a Republican moderate, theyâre going to have to think twice. The messages coming out of the national party are critical. Theyâve got to be embracive and inclusive of political diversity. They canât on one hand say weâre going to build a majority and then say we only want people with certain characteristics, like white males from the South. Thatâs a concern to me.â Leadership has taken notice. The Republican National Committee says a critical first step is to be more all-inclusive when recruiting and training women. It says its Womenâs Coalition is making an early push to identify women for 2010 as part of its 50-state plan. âPart of our goal is to dramatically increase the number of Republican women running for office,â said Republican National Committee Co-Chairwoman Jan Larimer. âChairman [Michael] Steele and I agree that we must redouble our efforts to build a strong grass-roots organization that encourages participation by every Republican in every state and territory.â But the pool is shallow. State legislatures, which often serve as feeders for Congress, are also seeing fewer Republican women step up to the plate. Meanwhile, Democratic training outlets such EMILYâs List have been well-organized and highly successful at recruiting, while anti-abortion Republican womensâ groups, such as the National Federation of Republican Women and the Wish List, say they are bracing for another tough election cycle. McMorris Rodgers, who is helping lead the NRCCâs candidate recruitment team, says sheâs bringing in groups of women from different regions of the country for tours of Capitol Hill in the hopes of getting some to run. âIt is going to be critical,â she said, âthat the Republican Party has a face that includes women of all ages and backgrounds and experiences.â Walsh agrees. âIf you believe that a more centrist position for the Republican Party would bring about more success and bring more voters back, then women would help make that happen,â she said. âWomen bring a voice of moderation that could pull them back to the party.â
A woman has to be brain dead to be a republican. When you are pro life you are essentially a baby making machine with no say in what goes in your womb. "barefoot and pregnant" is the republican way.
We all got a first hand look at how Bill Clinton treated women over the years and from 1992 - 2008 he was the head democrat, so why don't you quit your tired act.
Republicians believe the greatest power a woman has is to control what goes in her womb. By keeping sperm out of her womb she would never have to murder her child.
This is a classic liberal crockadile tears article. They are so upset that there are not more female republican candidates and officeholders. Yeah right. Look how they treat the ones that do run. snowe and Collins are liberals that backstab their party so they get a pass. Sarah Palin, not so much. She was absolutely carpet-bombed by the media. They were dragging out hags I haven't seen in years, people like Sally Quinn, to wring their hands about how could a mother possibly be VP? And what kind of mother would run for such an office? The sort of thing they would never in a million years mention if it was a liberal democrat. Then there was the mean-spirited mocking. In a race where the democrats ran a guy no one even knows where he was born, who looks ridiculous, like Erkle's big brother, who had serial issues with racist preachers, radical terrorist mentors, crooked Chicago mob sponsors, and the most liberal voting record in the Senate when he bothered to show up, the networks did not seem him worthy of any serious satire, except to make gentle fun of the media's kid gloves treatment of him. His VP, Joe Biden, is a virtual gaffe machine and one of the Senate's biggest windbags. Nothing funny there, apparently. But a mom who had gone into local politics, overcome a corrupt political establishment and become governor of a huge state and who embodied mainstream Christian values? She was mercilessly mocked and attacked on every ground imaginable, including a suggestion of incest involving her husband and daughter. Just good clean fun to the same media that are now clucking that republicans better watch what they say about sotomayor. And they wonder why there aren't more female republican candidates and officeholders?