Iowa's Record on Female Candidates

The Des Moines Register has a great article today - written by Mike Glover - on Iowa being such a hotbed for politics, yet hostile terrain for female candidates. What kind of "progressive" message are we sending when Iowa is just one of two states never to have elected a woman governor or send a women to Congress? (Mississippi is the other state.)

Dianne Bystrom - the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for the Study of Women in Politics at Iowa State University - points to surveys that she says show "older women tend to be less supportive of other women than younger women," and that's a tough fact to ignore, considering Iowa's predominat senior population.

Former Bettendorf mayor Ann Hutchinson cites barriers in attitudes, and asks, "Why is it that women don't want other women to succeed?"

This is a question we need to address. With Hillary considered a front-runner for the party's nomination in '08 and Iowa holding the nation's first caucus, what message will Iowa send other states looking to us for guidance and attitudes toward leadership?

As we forge our way through this next election cycle, we must ask some tough questions and take a hard and realistic look at the answers:

-- Who - and what - is holding us back?
-- How do we go about pushing through that roadblock?
-- What specific issues do we need to address with our state's graying population?
-- What concerted efforts can we take?
-- At what level do we begin, and how do we expand from there?

I still remember the quote used when I first learned to type, and never has it seemed more appropriate, with one minor change, of course:

"Now is the time for all good men [and women] to come to the aid of their party."