Forbes came out with a list of 25 “power women” of the 2010 midterm elections. You can have fun by first seeing if you can name 25 women in the midterm scenario, then rank them and then check them against the Forbes’ list. However, what you may find more interesting is Forbes’ companion story on whether “mama grizzlies” are feminine conservatives or conservative feminists. Read the full post here and weigh in.

The Ohio Elections Commission has dismissed a complaint made by Former Fox personality and now Republican candidate for Ohio governor, John Kasich, and filed against the campaign of Governor Ted Strickland. The complaint stemmed from the traditionally wretched ratings Kasich has gotten over the years from the NRA. Even the Buckeye Firearms Association, which gives Strickland an A+, chastised Kasich. From Cincinnati.com: Columbus attorney Donald McTigue argued that Kasich got an F-rating from the...

BlogHer.com has a history of political figures interacting with its membership. Carly Fiorina answered questions in a phone interview, and Kirsten Gillibrand met with BlogHers in person in New York City this summer (I was one of about 15 or so who was there). Now, the four candidates will answer questions collected at BlogHer.com, via Twitter and Facebook. If you are in Missouri or any of the congressional districts involved, please consider taking advantage of this opportunity. My experience...

That in 2010, seven days before election day, an all-male revue of four gubernatorial candidates sign a pledge to appoint more women to positions is just so sad. So I’m taking a hint from the The Rent is Too Damn High party and starting, The Pols are Too Damn Male party. Read more here. Rhode Island gubernatorial candidates from left, Independent Lincoln Chafee, Moderate Party Ken Block, Republican John Robitaille, and Democrat Frank Caprio, gather together to sign a pledge to appoint more...

Joining the Obama Administration’s outreach to women, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D, CT-3) held a conference call last week, focusing on issues affecting women. Pelosi and DeLauro plowed through accomplishments for and concerns about the status of women in the United States. On the 2010 health care bill, DeLauro emphasized that the real benefits in the bill, for women, will be transformative, declaring, “Women’s health for the first time is being...

On this past Thursday, the White House hosted a small conference call for online media with senior administration officials to discuss the impact of the recession on women and how the Administration’s agenda is affecting women. Led by Cecilia Rouse, Member of the Council of Economic Advisors and Jen Psaki, White House Deputy Communications Director, the on-the-record call was grounded in a new National Economic Council (NEC) report. This report describes what it sees as the economic landscape...

Yesterday, Politico published a lengthy piece by Jonathan Martin called, “Sarah Palin is wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, GOP sources say.” It’s a pretty normal flow of information, until you get to this: “There is an enormous volume of requests for Gov. Palin to do all kinds of activities to help the party and individual candidates,” said Michael Goldfarb, an adviser to Palin. “She’s done as many of these events as she possibly can.” He framed it as a matter of Palin...

First there was Wide Open*. Then there was Red Blue America. Now, there’s Matter of Opinion. From its About Us page: Matter Of Opinion (MOO) is a new bi-partisan concept designed to draw as many people as possible into the political discussion. MOO launches weekly survey-based conversations that explore a variety of politically-charged local, national and global issues…issues that (until now) are not easily open to public opinion. As people respond to the survey they also provide a question...

Seriously. If you’re not following these incredibly simple rules, as outlined in this Washington Post op-ed, then you’re intentionally using gender stereotypes to inflict damage (aka being sexist): Don’t equate typically female characteristics or activities (baking, wearing high heels) with weakness. Don’t — even, or maybe especially, if you’re a woman — equate toughness with manliness. At least not unless you think it’s acceptable for your opponent to tell you to behave...

Lucky for someone, Lady Gaga’s meatdress didn’t make it’s appearance until just last month at the MTV Video Music Awards. But the subject line tease here is for this post, A Vision in Pork: Illustrator Gives Patty Murray the Lady Gaga Meatsuit Treatment (with images of course) at my gig through Election Day blogging for the Women’s Campaign Forum’s Woman and Politics blog. (Daily round-ups and multiple posts each weekday about races with women in them at every level)...

Update: The Toledo Free Press had this story about the tactics, described as threats in a 2008 lawsuit, used by Rich Iott in a dispute related to his son and several roommates. I’ll let people draw their own conclusions, per my comment in the District section. Original post: Catch up on the healthy debate about how much emphasis voters should give a GOP candidate in Ohio who has a long-standing interest in military re-enactments, including Waffen SS soldiers, in this comment thread at The...

The video via Think Progress: And the full post at Think Progress. I’ve maligned the Young Guns program before, but here’s what the program says about itself: America is standing at a critical crossroads, and Young Guns candidates give America the best opportunity to move our country in the right direction. Founded in the 2007-2008 election cycle by Congressmen Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Young Guns Program began as a Member driven organization...

Political Wire has two teases. The first highlights new poll results indicating that, “Sarah Palin is viewed unfavorably by 48% of Americans. She is viewed favorably by just 22% — including just 44% of Republicans, 21% of independents and 6% of Democrats.” The second reports on new Pew information: “Fully 46% say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supported government loans to banks during the financial crisis two years ago, while nearly as many (42%)...

The Stir has waded through the muck to come up with a this Top 50 list of the most sexist quotes from the campaign trails of female political candidates over the years (though it really doesn’t go back very far except in a couple of cases). So sad that this is just from a short span of time – can’t imagine what they’d find if we’d had the Internet longer. For more, read the cross-post at Writes Like She Talks.

Earlier today I was asked to write a 300 word oped on Ohio, our voters, our economy and what the heck do we want done with it all as part of the New York Times’ Room For Debate platform. You can see my thoughts next to those of five others here. Question for my fellow co-bloggers here and the community that reads us: What do you think about the Room For Debate format? Interesting, I think. Reminds me a bit of the Plain Dealer’s Wide Open experiment, but a lot more refined.

Here’s Susan Page on new survey results from Celinda Lake coming out today: The poll, taken Sept. 1-8, asked 800 likely voters to listen to descriptions of two hypothetical congressional candidates, Jane Smith and Dan Jones. Half then heard a back-and-forth about the candidates that used the words “ice queen” and “mean girl,” then the word “prostitute” to characterize the woman. The other half of the sample heard a political back-and-forth without those...

As the unusual confluence of the Jewish new year, Ramadan and September 11th has come and gone, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direct talks being pursued right now by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But this post is not about the talks’ core issues, as they’re called, or about the fact that the talks themselves are happening. I want to focus on Secretary Clinton and the skills and talents she is using, will need and may possess that can help — or hinder —...

In late August, the California legislature overwhelmingly passed amendments to stiffen penalties connected to its current anti-stalking law. You can read the bill here. The objects of the amendments’ affection? Paparrazzi who get too close. Lawmakers had sympathy for the idea that there is such a thing as paparazzi being too close, even to celebrities whom we might think don’t deserve such legal protections given that their careers are often spent in and dependent upon being the center of attention....

In a week that saw the launch of a funded, organized, coordinated effort to help us get at the roots of sexism (check out Name It. Change It), we also get Sarah Palin demonstrating the carelessness with which she’s accused many others in using sexist rhetoric. From CNN Politicalticker: “Those who are impotent and limp and gutless and they go on their anonymous – sources that are anonymous – and impotent, limp and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as...

I’ve written before about how exactly do women use whatever positive attributes, as women, we have on the campaign trail, especially given that there are three or four generations of women around to vote and they definitely don’t all view female politicians and campaigning as a woman in the same way. But now the New York Times has really conflated the coverage of women politicians and still somehow managed to ignore what does matter in a political competition in, “Blazing Campaign...

Anastasia Pantsios, a lifelong journalist, does a great job in Ohio Daily Blog‘s post, “A Disturbing Pattern” with the subject of how the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s primary endorsements for 12 newly-created elected positions read as gender-biased reviews though the motivation seems unintentional. But just because there is no intention does not mean that there is no bias. It should be revealed and filtered out, or otherwise acknowledged and/or controlled for. Coming on the heels...

Last November, I wrote about how I went from being a political blogger, to being a political candidate and then an elected official because I won my race. Alan Rosenblatt and I then worked to compile a list of similar cases and found less than two handfuls. A Politico reporter researched and wrote and Politico published, More Bloggers Throwing Hats in the Ring on Wednesday. It’s got some nice overview information about the gentle wave (20 political bloggers running for office, out of millions...

Really not sure what a Mama Grizzly would say about this. Maybe Mama Grizzlies have potty mouths? But to me, it’s about gender neutral punches. Gender. Neutral. If we don’t lead and show how it’s done, we can never be heard to expect that others stop it too. Why? Here’s a collage of how bad it was against Sarah Palin herself: Watch this video – again and again – and see how men and women contribute to the sexist treatment of politicians (in this video, Hillary...

In 2004 and again in 2008, Jennifer Lawless (Director, Women & Politics Institute, American University) and Robert Fox published reports that examine why women don’t run for elected position. The first was called Why Don’t Women Run For Office?, and Why Are Women Still Not Running For Office? was the follow up. Both reports eventually were published as books.  While seen as mostly accurate in nailing a number of issues related to the paucity of women in elected office, especially...

If you aren’t old enough to remember Bush v. Gore (serious trivia: for those who’ve followed California’s Prop 8, check out the attorneys in Bush v. Gore and who they represented), don’t worry. The debate it highlighted — should our president be selected by popular vote or the electoral college system — lives on in the efforts of many states, catalogued by National Popular Vote to dump the electoral college in favor of the popular vote, and Massachusetts is just...