12 Responses to “UPDATE: National Federation of Republican Women comments on men outgunning women in “Young Guns””

1. 1 Chuck Butcher on August 1st, 2009 8:17 pm

   Maybe you should take it as a gender compliment that the GOP can only find 1/12 women/men to be their variety of stupid, mean, and irrational. There are some elected Federal (R)s who don’t fit that description but their number is shrinking and they are increasingly marginalized.

   Democrats are scarcely immune but that behavior is in a lot shorter supply and as an odd correlation have a lot more women in office.

   I’ve noticed that a large percentage of Republican Congresswomen manage to excell at their looniness – even surpassing their male counterparts. Maybe with Michelle Bachman and her counterparts as role models the field of applicants is narrow…

   If I seem a bit partisan – well the Confederate Party of Republicanism invites it.

2. 2 Gloria Pan on August 4th, 2009 11:30 am

   I agree with Chuck. And I would add, using broad generalizations, that women are closest to the rough and tumble of life – parent-teacher meetings, sports events, birthday parties – where you’re out there everyday facing… reality. And that reality doesn’t much match the current GOP vision. It’s extra hard, then, to put yourself forward to be a representative of an increasingly fringe vision, for then you’d have to close your eyes to reality and be part of marketing that fringe, right? And as a voter, you wouldn’t be much inspired to turn out to vote either, though it’s easier to do that cuz it doesn’t require soul-searching and certainly doesn’t require that you pay very close attention.

3. 3 Kari B. Hertel on August 5th, 2009 4:40 pm

   I know its sometimes easy to characterize the party one is not a member of as “stupid, mean and irrational.” However, I think Jill’s post here really meant to go beyond those put-downs and think about a bigger picture. Since I happen to be one of those women who associate more with that party some may characterize as “stupid, mean and irrational” I think I probably have a more accurate vision of what’s happening with women in the GOP than folks like “Chuck” (see comment above). I’ve mentioned to Jill and others that I feel conservative women of Ohio both within and outside of the GOP have started to better communicate with each other and with the “establishment(s)” which have been traditionally run by men. Through email and other new media, women are communicating more and better than ever. Time moves on and so do women. The Jo Ann Davidson Institute in Ohio is a good example of a new way GOP women are becoming more politically savvy. While I can’t speak for Pete Sessions, we can start at home and work up. And don’t think women can’t have a positive impact on the GOP! We intend to. Finally, Jill is right that women supporting women, even of other political stripes, is not a scary, bad thing. Its a positive thing and we should use it to the fullest extent we can. I have a daughter and she will always have my undying support no matter what or who she chooses to become.

4. 4 Chuck Butcher on August 6th, 2009 2:02 am

   Kari, your bunch invites it with their own words and actions. What you are is open to question since you’ve no more than said you’re an (R) rather than parrot their some of their nastiness. I won’t tar you with association … there used to be a Republican Party I could drum up some respect for even in disagreement – if you have some inclination to fix that situation more power to you. I’m real dubious that’s your goal.

   It may seem mean to kick ‘em when they’re down, but I’d rather kick this mess off a cliff and see something responsible replace it, even if I disagreed strongly with it.

5. 5 Jill Zimon on August 6th, 2009 6:23 am

   Chuck, I’m going to have to editorialize for a minute here (as if that’s not what bloggers basically do anyway!):

   I can’t remember who sought whom out, but I have great respect for Kari based on numerous virtual conversations we’ve been having over the last few weeks. We’re both in Ohio and we both want to increase the number of women in the political and political leadership pipeline, across the ideological spectrum. It takes time to get to trust people who do not share the same perspectives or philosophies when it comes to political problem-solving but I feel safe in saying that Kari and I do agree that women have a huge role to play and deserve to play a huge role and there are systemic reasons why they are not in the roles we’d like to be in and we’re working to improve that.

   Blogging, online communication makes it so hard to really know anyone and so easy to fallback on what we generally know, based on experience, about categorically clumped ideologies, like “DEMOCRATS” or “REPUBLICANS.”

   No one is going to mistake me for a Republican (well, actually, that’s not completely true – some online pro-Hillary people thought I was a Republican when I suggested that women had to find a way to understand why Obama was a better choice for them than McCain because they thought I was just…well – I never understood the logic! and a couple of years ago, I was called a Neo-con when Middle East policy came up) and I doubt many people would mistake Kari for a Democrat.

   But in our conversations, we’re not about that. We may get to debating all that, but what brought us to each others attention was the attention we both pay to women in Ohio and women seeking political office and political clout in Ohio.

   So – I’m prevailing on you, in my appreciation for all the reading and commenting you do here, to at least consider what I’m telling you about my experience of Kari. Blogging is so quick and mindless sometimes – I know how easy it is to toss something off in reaction to what I’ve just read. I’m not suggesting you’ve done that, and Kari had only the one comment here for you to familiarize yourself with her.

   So I’m vouching for her.

   Thanks, Chuck.

6. 6 Chuck Butcher on August 6th, 2009 2:53 pm

   As I said, I won’t tar Kari with the association brush. There are some things from the left that I push back against quite enthusiastically. That said, Kari didn’t like what I had to say about the expressed positions of her party and made no expression of desire to reform, rather to call me essentially an uninformed partisan. That happens to be hogwash other than the partisan piece.

   If I were in Kari’s position my response to me would have been, “yes there are things that need to be addressed and that’s one reason for my activism.” I have made similar responses myself. She didn’t.

   I don’t mind going to war and I also don’t mind disputing ideas respectfully, I’ll accept your voucher out of respect for your acumen and expressed ideas rather than her actual words. Let me be clear, any GOP watching the Ohio Palin rallies ought to be scared spitless and reading or hearing their County Chairs and associated organizations should be real warnings – and they haven’t been. If they want to play at being the Confederate Party of Republicanism that’s going to be very bad for the concept of realistic opposition parties rather than regional marginalized crazies. I don’t like that result so I mock them unmercifully, opposition is important in our system and the BushCo years prove that.

   So, Kari – I don’t care if I disagree with your ideas, I can do that fairly nicely; but the craziness is mockable and will consistently get that from me. I don’t really find women immune from ‘the crazy’ but I do find them as a group less inclined so it is possible that more influential women in the GOP might be good for it. More Palins and Bachmans and etc would make for great mockery and a sad end for the GOP. I’d bet, given the structure, on the latter. Make me happy by proving me wrong.

7. 7 Kari B. Hertel on August 8th, 2009 2:24 pm

   Thanks Jill for your support and for filling in some blanks which may not be obvious to others regarding our relationship, mutual respect and ongoing fight to place women at our rightful place with others at the head political tables of all parties. It seems like Chuck has been unfortunately influenced by what could be seen(what I even see sometimes) as ill-advised actions and words of some of those on the right. While I cannot take responsiblity for them, I can just thank Chuck for giving me the benefit of the doubt that my intentions are good. I can vouch for many other women, especially in Ohio, who also have good intetions about simultaneously improving the GOP while improving the representation of women in it and from it.
   Also, I think that often it is not necessarily the actual positions of conservatives (or liberals too) that are offensive, though certainly people of all reasonable minds may disagree, but often I’ve felt that is the method and manner of communication of those conservative views (or liberal views) that are the most offensive to people. We can all cite examples of both.
   Anyway, Chuck, I respectfully ask for your support in the joint efforts to move women forward on this field. In fact, it really sounds like you are favorably disposed toward women being fairly represented across the political spectrum and that is a good thing to hear. I chuckled at your request that I “make you happy” since this struggle, respectfully, is not about your happiness. However, if your happiness and this fight are mutually won, well then we’ve gotten even more than we bargained for! And that is a good thing too. Lastly, I want to throw in that I liked the comments of Gloria Pan, and agree that she’s right in that women are so “up-close” to the real-life stuff like kids in school, shopping for a family, sports events, doctor/dentist/etc. appointments for everyone in the family. What I have found is that many of those things do help sharpen my views and beliefs about political issues, and interestingly, have solidified my more (especially) fiscally conservative views which more identify with the right than the left. My point is, though I could be one-of-a-kind, it is possible to go through those woman/mom/wife/professional experiences and actually identify more with Republican ideologies – though I can see why perhaps not necessarily with the current (or most recently departed) PEOPLE who are supposed to be the leaders espousing those ideologies, and that just increases my motivation to move women ahead!!!!

8. 8 Chuck Butcher on August 9th, 2009 12:30 am

   Kari I am very much influenced by the public stands of a political party and the stands they don’t take.

   What I will tell you about my support, we are all humans and when we cut any of us out of positions for immaterial reasons the entire nation loses. I quite frankly expect most women to view the world through a different perspective than I do and their lack of participation in the political forum is bad for it. Many of my female Democratic colleagues and I agree quite thoroughly on issues but we get there from different directions and I am enlarged by considering and understanding their perspective. I depend on them and need them and I consistently encourage any woman I meet in such a situation to make all she can of her talents. I do not find women to be better or lesser than men, simply different, but then unlike your party I extend that a bit more broadly to others your party cuts out.

   I don’t need an education in Republicans, I live in a County that is 32D/45R and a CD that is 30D/40R with Greg Walden (OR2-R) for a Rep. Quite naturally I have as many or more friends and business acquaintances who are registered (R). I am a partisan but I do not engage in half-truths or out right lies and I’d be hard put to find many in my state of my (D) who do.

   I am a dedicated and fierce opponent of the Republican Party of today, I have almost no respect for its leadership or virtually any of its elected officials at national level and find its media surrogates pathetic to dangerous. I leave my (R) State Rep alone because he behaves (so far) in an honorable manner. I may disagree with him on some policies or the other but he is not a lying hate and fear mongering butthead like so many of the (R). BTW J Bohner rates as political pond scum – by his own lying ways.

   If you want to try to rebuild the mess that is the Republican Party into a responsible mostly honorable political party I am on your side, but the who you’ve got now I’d rather beat like a cheap drum.

9. 9 Chuck Butcher on August 9th, 2009 12:34 am

   Just as a side note, I am politician enough to understand framing, soft pedalling, and exaggeration – lying is offensive.

10. 10 Jill Miller Zimon on August 9th, 2009 1:29 pm

    Chuck – with all due respect, you of course don’t have to choose to distinguish between an individual who puts themselves out here with a real name and real sentiments from the more monolithic generalization of The Republican Party. But Kari has made her specific relation to the topic of women in politics, conservative women and women and the GOP pretty clear. It’s so much easier to demonize something when we generalize – I am not immune from doing that either. But here, on this blog, I like to think that one of the things people have been able to do is to mostly accept that we’re each individuals and not to be considered specific reflections of some monolithic group – unless we’re saying we want to be.

    Anyway – I’m saying with a smile, I think you’re being hard on Kari without provocation or reason, though you are being very clear about your opinions of the GOP. I don’t like having the collective stereotype or even individual experience people may have of the Dem. party grafted onto me – so I guess I’m reacting to what I’m reading as your insistance of grafting the GOP onto Kari.

    You and I know there are far better blog and internet targets who do in fact parrot their party lines. I think we can see and acknowledge nuance, that’s all.

11. 11 Chuck Butcher on August 10th, 2009 12:46 am

    I suppose I owe Kari a bit of an appology, I guess all the GOP lying around these watered down health care reforms has given me a bit of an attitude. I have to claim Ben Nelson and his bunch so it doesn’t seem unfair to me to allow her the same privilege.

    I co-blogged for awhile with a conservative Independent on his blog, I strongly enodorsed his decision to become very active in the Republican Party even though we were ideological opponents because he was an honorable opponent who engaged in dialogue, I cross-posted that to my own lefty blog. In the end I was too left and too rough for the audience, truth stings I guess.

    Kari has taken no stand on what has me ticked off beyond being a member of that Party so it isn’t real fair to clobber her. But then, I like stands – as some may have noticed…

    I spend time, money, and effort on the Democratic Party – I am surely a Democrat and a left one to boot, if a little odd by some standards (D&R). It seems Kari is a Republican in the same sense that I’m a Democrat, ie time, etc. I give her kudos for trying to get women involved since they might help moderate the crazy (despite more evidence to the contrary). I’m pretty sure there are real reasons women do better in the Democratic Party and that they are reflective of what ails the Rs.

    I’m a D though I could live with being an I if impotence appealed to me, but I’d be flatly ashamed to have an R on my registration. That isn’t based on a “my team/tribe” thinking, it is reflective of who I am. I make the assumption that activists of whatever Party/Org are pretty reflective of their outfit’s public stances. Odd how that goes since they wear their badge and work to further its interests.

    Some are surprised that I’d like to see a strong GOP, that piece is something I consider to be in the national interest, but right now my goal is to drive them so close to extinction that they reform themselves into a responsible Party or die and be replaced. In today’s world no Party can make it without some good measure of the (I) support, that’ll take something the R has missed and desperate flailing about with lies won’t do it, there is blowback. Sometimes saying “OK” trumps “NO!!!” particularly if you can point to a good piece of work like Issaksen (GA-R) can on the “pay for end of life consultations” now called “death boards.”

12. 12 Now GOP women complaining re: lack of GOP female pols? Still too little too late : Writes Like She Talks on February 3rd, 2010 10:37 am

    [...] UPDATE: National Federation of Republican Women comments on men outgunning women in “Young Guns” [...]

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