Target: Republican Women

Watching C-SPAN last night, (a nasty habit to break), I saw Rep. Christopher Murphy of Connecticut praising his predecessor, Nancy Johnson, who he defeated last November for her good work over and over again. He then went on to say how he only wished that voices of moderation such as hers still were present on the Republican side of the aisle. To state the obvious if you are such a fan of hers, don’t take her seat. That made me realize though that the fraction of women serving in the House of Repesentives on the Republican side is getting slimmer and slimmer. Out of the 202 seats the Republicans hold only 21 are held by women. For roughly for every 10 Republicans serving only one is a woman. While both sides are vastly represented by men, Republicans are worse. However what’s interesting is the fact that Democrats are particularly targeting Republican women.               
                                        
The Democrats took the seats of Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Katharine Harris of Florida (though she left on her own to run for Senate), Sue Kelly of New York, and Anne Northup in Kentucky. Johnson and Kelly were both moderates, and Northup a conservative, but a likable one. However were it gets shocking is that Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, Thelma Drake of Virginia, Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, Deborah Pryce and Jean Schmidt both of Ohio were all on the Democratic hit list and barely kept their seats by razor thin margins. And while a few of the congresswomen are safe, quite a few “didn’t make the cut this time”. In 2008 they say they try again adding Senator Susan Collins of Maine to the list. With such a limited number of Republican Women serving they are considered the high level targets. Perhaps it’s time for Democrats to admit that they are not the party of women, since all four seats taken were replaced by men. The Republican Party also needs to make more effort to recruit and support women in the party. It’s getting harder and harder to defend our party as the party of the American people when we have eleven white males running on our side for president, while the Democrats have a woman and black man as their frontrunners.