You have to hand it to Republicans—when they go in they go in all the way. This time, Republicans have decided that Karen Handel will head up an effort “to identify, recruit and support” Republican women running for state legislature in the 2012 election.
The problems with this choice are many and obvious. First, candidate filing deadlines have expiredin all 44 states with regular legislative elections this year, so unless Handel expects to recruit 150 female candidates in Delaware (where there's still time for local parties to fill the GOP's many ballot vacancies), the time for recruiting and identifying candidates has long since past. But most importantly, choosing Handel to lead this effort provides an important insight into practices and policies that the Republican Party supports.
When Handel was last given a national position, she was appointed the vice-president for public affairs at Susan G. Komen for the Cure. In her position, Handel drove the decision to stop funding preventative breast cancer screening exams for uninsured women at Planned Parenthood. When the controversy erupted, it was Handel who came up with the excuse that they were withdrawing funds because“of a new internal policy forbidding it from funding any organization that's currently under investigation in Congress.” Never mind the fact that the so-called "investigation" of Planned Parenthood is nothing more than an anti-choice lawmaker's personal political vendetta.
Handel was forced to resign, but her reckless politicization of women's health care is still having an impact—with Susan G. Komen's annual “Race for the Cure” registration decreasing forty percent in cities from Seattleto Washington DC.
But given that Republican legislatures across the United States have repealed equal pay guarantees, made it legal to fire women for using contraception, forced women to undergo unnecessary and invasive ultra-sounds before having an abortion, silencedtwo female Democratic legislators in Michigan after using medically correct terms to speak out against anti-choice legislation, and called a sexual assault victim “defective,” maybe Handel is the "right woman" for the job. Her views match the GOP's, and both are grossly out of step with the majority of America.
There is a reason why the majorityof women legislators in the United States are Democrats, and it has nothing to do with press releases. It has everything to do with the fact that issues important to women, from being able to make decisions about their own health to making sure that women receive equal pay for equal work, are core tenants of the Democratic Party’s philosophy and constant targets of the Republicans'.
Voters are smart enough to see past a publicity stunt and recognize the policies a party advocates.