A recent CBS News/New York Times poll suggested that women, crippled by despair, may decide to stay home November 2. What this poll failed to detect is the unprecedented ground-swell of fiscally conservative women running for office this year -- giving women a new reason to vote.
Women burdened by the weight of our unstable economy are turning away from Democratic Party candidates in virtually every political race. And this year they have the power to do some old-fashioned house cleaning in Washington.
Just look at the polls. In one of the most high-profile national races for Democrats, recent figures reveal that California conservative Carly Fiorina is within striking distance of 28-year Washington veteran, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). This, despite the recent launch of Boxer’s latest multi-million dollar television campaign trying to put Fiorina’s business record in question. California hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since Pete Wilson in 1982, but the chance to elect a woman who knows what a billion dollars looks like on paper, seems almost irresistible to working women watching trillions disappear in Washington.
In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is battling to stay even with unexpected conservative challenger, state legislator Sharron Angle.
New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte is currently one point ahead in the Granite State.
In Delaware despite early battering by the media, surprise Republican senate nominee Christine O’Donnell continues to cut into the lead held by Democratic candidate Chris Coons, forcing him to defend his abysmal economic record.
Six Senate seats this year are considered toss-ups. Wins in all of them could mean Republican Senator Mitch McConnell would have the opportunity to reverse the direction of the Senate in a year full of electoral surprises.
At the House level, fiscally conservative candidates already positioned to win overwhelmingly in November will receive a boost from the Grand Ole Party’s “Pledge for America.” While the Pledge is missing balanced budget amendment, it’s a start and vows to stop reckless government spending and slam the brakes on the power-hungry agenda of sitting Democrat leaders.
What may define the outcome of 2010 election is that women are expected to outvote men 52% - 48%. This means women may very well determine the next leaders who take their seats in Washington. With this in mind, women are already preparing to march to the polls with a unified and firm message: Quit squandering our hard-earned paychecks and the futures of our families.
Here’s a snapshot of why women are winning, why women are engaged, and why we are so fiercely concerned about the economy this year:
First--and this may be a newsflash to some—Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi doesn’t really represent the hearts and minds of the majority of women in America today. In truth, Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, and their generation of liberal activists, have been clinging long enough to the national stage, and their big government agendas have gone out of style. Women of all political stripes are resisting Democratic supersized legislation, based on “promise now, pay later economics” which can only bury them and their children in astronomical debt. This is why the voices of Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Jan Brewster in Arizona, Carly Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in California resonate and speak to hardworking women today of all economic classes.
Second, women who have to go without to keep their kids in soccer cleats and braces, aren’t entertained by Congressmen and Senators in $1,200 suits who don’t know how to balance a checkbook. When American families have to make do, make good, or do without, why can’t Washington?
Fireside chats and hopeful press conferences are not softening the blow of a troubled economy. Some two million women this year alone are paying the family bills while their husbands look for work. Ten million single mothers are just trying to put food on the table.
This past month, 75,000 more families lost their homes to foreclosure. In some regions of the state of California, unemployment rates are 30-40 percent.
All of these figures help to explain the latest census figures which reveal that almost 50 million people in our country are living at the poverty level.
In such a time as this, the only thing more volatile than today’s stock market is the growing anger among women who know they can’t work any harder, can’t make their earnings go any further, and can’t figure out why politicians have better health care than they do.
Conservative women political candidates are leading in almost all of the fifty states this year because they realize that their professions, their devoted community service, and even all their nurturing on the home front, is no longer enough to keep America strong. They are looking up from their homes, their children, and their careers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with fiscally-conservative men to save the ship.
In 2010, conservative women in America know that the true crisis in the world is right here at home and it’s time to ride to the rescue.
Sonja Eddings Brown is president and co-founder of The Kitchen Cabinet, a organization with over one million supporters dedicated to mobilizing conservative women to get out the vote.
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