Watch out, Hillary! Sen. Kelly Ayotte is coming for women voters.
Here we go again: Republicans are once again trying to
reach out to young women, this time with the "low-fund, high-involvement" RightNOW Women PAC. Are you shaking in your boots yet? Apparently that's the goal:
Sen. Kelly Ayotte says a new Republican women’s political action committee is “Democrats’ worst nightmare.”
I know I'm terrified of yet another effort by Republicans to win over women voters by talking about how much they care rather than by embracing policies young women care about. Especially when its kickoff event included not just the best and brightest GOP women (Ayotte and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Marsha Blackburn, and Kristi Noem, plus Sen. John Thune's daughter), but poster boys for the paleness, maleness, and staleness of the Republican Party like Papa Thune, Saxby Chambliss, John Boehner, Pat Roberts, and Pete Sessions. I mean, Saxby Chambliss! How can women
not flock to the Republicans if he's on board trying to lure them?
In typical fashion, all these crusaders for Republicanizing America's young women seem to be talking about is getting women who already agree with them to be more involved and finding a few more women to run for office and serve as figureheads, showing up at press conferences when John Boehner or Mitch McConnell need to be flanked by women to distract from the anti-woman nature of their policies. They're also looking to take John McCain's 2008 playbook one step further:
The group is focusing heavily on 2014 but already has eyes open for a Republican woman to run for the presidential nomination in 2016.
Yeah, guys, it's 2014. If you don't already have a strong female candidate identified, you're not serious about finding one. But we already knew this wasn't about making real changes in your party; it's just about buffing up the crappy Republican brand a little.