Invasion of the Pink Elephants?

Last week, I attended a panel called "Women and the 2010 Election" and thought it would be an excellent kickoff for this blog! In fact, the panel was ideal because the panel featured two Democratic women and two Republican women.

On the Democratic side were leading strategist Celinda Lake and Ellen Malcolm, the founder of EMILY's List (a PAC that aims to elect more pro-choice Democratic women to the House and Senate). On the right were Sarah Simmons, the Director of Strategy for Sen. McCain's presidential campaign in 2008, and Nancy Bocskor, a Republican fundraiser. In the middle was Jennifer Lawless, author of It Takes a Candidate and director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University.

The first question made me sit up and immediately sparked my attention. I copied it here and included the transcript of the women's responses. DC GOP Girl, what do you think?

The panel started off with a bang: 1992 (The Year of the Woman) put EMILY's List on the map. Is 2010 the Year of the Republican Woman? 

NB (R): More women who are running are conservative and they’re winning in these primaries b./c mostly conservatives vote in primaries. It’s now cool to be conservative women because of Sarah Palin.
SS (R): [In the past] We needed to surround Arnold (Schwarzenegger) with women & Hispanics and not “fat old white men.” With John McCain, we tried to surround him with non-typical GOP people but it didn’t seem natural. The GOP women running now are wealthy enough to fund own campaigns so they can do it their way.
JL (-): 2010 women running: 134 House (87 Dems), 30 are challengers running against incumbents. People are trying to grab on to a couple high profile GOP women and say it’s a trend but it’s not truly a trend. The media would like it to be the Year of the Republican Woman.
CL (D): I was thinking that it was a year of women with business backgrounds, of economic backgrounds. That credential is very interesting. Republican primaries have traditionally been very hard on women and Dems have been easy for women. Born again Christians have not been favorable to women, but with the Tea Party are now very comfortable with women (conservative women). Younger votes especially young women aren’t finding candidates as excited as they once were.
EM (D): I can understand why people would say that it’s time for conservative women. There’s a responsibility for the Republican party to reach out to women…good for them for getting out there, good for them for firing up the party.

-Pearls in Power