EMILY's List Eye on Which Prize?

(Courtesy of equalrepresentation.org)     Subscribe in a reader

Just have to wonder why EMILY's List is sounding off with a scorecard on Republican presidential candidates, which "compares many apples to oranges" and manages to rate Rick Perry the best of the bunch to boot few minutes before his conversion to harsher abortion remarks. Is it just a backhanded way to denigrate the only woman in that race -- Michelle Bachmann, who will NOT be the GOP nominee in any case! -- because they don't agree with her, or just a great way to raise money? Are some of its "members" closet Republicans, or is EMILY's List just doing the bidding of a Democratic Party that does nothing to elect MORE women? Don't we get enough of this negativity everyday via multiple media sources? Seems like a waste of resources, message and focus...

Thought EMILY's List was about electing Democrat women, not playing petty politics even when irrelevant and solidifying the nasty divide that has poisoned our electoral politics and paralyzed our government. You, on the otherhand, can focus on and contribute directly to the candidates of your choice -- especially those women running for "open seats" in Congress and who will not be annointed with party or E-List funds. Just re-electing sitting members is not good enough. Time to break the polarized grip on our pocketbooks and boost women out of second-class political status. In 2012, please keep YOUR eye on that prize!

Business As Usual: U.S. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) is retiring, and Democrats are reaching out to a retread now living in New York to represent one of 20 states that has no women in Congress. Republican State Senator Deb Fischer is already in the race -- just sayin'...

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If you are a Democrat...

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Check your snail mail! If you are a Democrat, you may have received a "2012 Priority Issues Survey" from Nancy Pelosi asking for $$$ to win back the House. Nowhere does the survey mention Equal Rights for Women or Equal Representation or anything about women, but "Stabilizing Afghanistan" did make the priority grab-bag cut...You can join others in sending the mailer back without a stamp or $$$ -- and asking what concrete plans the DCCC has to elect MORE women to Congress and whether they are focusing on filling empty seats with women to accelerate our numbers. Countries which now have more than 30% women in national legislatures -- the U.S. is stuck at 16.8% -- have taken concrete steps to boost women. What about us?

"Help Democrats protect the progress we have made?" Progress in recent times has been lacking on almost every front, and we can't just blame Republicans. You may also recall that the last time Democrats controlled Congress, the Paycheck Fairness Act was not passed and CEDAW was again not ratified. Most importantly, critical healthcare and financial issues important women and their families were discussed and voted upon with way too few women's voices and none from 18 states. 2010 mid-term election results sent women backwards re Congressional seats for the first time since 1979, with no women elected from 20 states. Shame!

Who does your party support and why, how are those decisions made? The Democratic and Republican parties both must support MORE women by making sure they make it through primaries. Dem leaders will tell you that there is a rule against the Party supporting one Democrat over another in a primary, but the reality is that they break that rule with impunity whenever it serves their purposes. That rule could be changed by the DNC Rules Committee and ratified at the 2012 Convention -- but only if rank-and-file Democrats stand up and refuse to let your leaders claim one thing and then do another. Change the rule and take away the bogus excuse for not supporting MORE women, especially for empty seats.

You can support the candidates of your choice directly, not wait to see where the "Democratic Leadership Team" will throw your money while many candidates -- most likely underfunded women -- are left twisting in the wind carrying the Democratic banner, making many (including financial) sacrifices, and bearing humiliating losses because they were not chosen based on questionable electoral strategies. More work by women's groups to get more women to run is great, but simply not enough. Political parties must be held accountable for the fact that women are grossly underrepresented in Congress -- unless all you want is more of the same.

(Read SMOKE & MIRRORS -- especially Chapter 6: Got Results? -- for a closer look at whether the Democratic Party follows its own rules. For a 50% discount use CODE WK85Q at checkout.)

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Barney Frank to retire, creating open seat in MA - now what?

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Barney Frank will not run for re-election, creating a congressional open seat in MA - but according to The Hill there is only one women currently in the mix, State Senator Cynthia Creem. Not to mention that the ten current MA seats are all held by Democrats -- 9 men and only one woman, Niki Tsongas (who in 2007 was the first woman elected to Congress from MA in 25 years.) No other women "Ready to Run" for Congress in Massachusetts? Will the Democratic Party boost a woman in this relatively safe seat?

Oops! Forgot to mention that Democrat leaders will almost certainly play the "we cannot support anyone in primaries" card, using a rule that is followed when it suits them and ignored with impunity when they favor someone over others. This is a rule that can be changed at the 2012 Democratic Convention if action is taken leading up to the convention through the Rules Committee -- even if its a temporary rules change at least until women reach the 30 percent benchmark for seats in Congress. One state can start the ball rolling, but will anyone have the vision/guts to stand up to create the kind of concrete political change needed to make Equal Representation a reality in our lifetimes?

(More on "Every OPEN SEAT a Woman's Seat" in Chapter 11, SMOKE & MIRRORS: The Truth About the Political Status of U.S. Women)

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