So, I got some unsolicited mail — there’s a shocker — about a Democratic candidate named Krystal Ball. Krystal Ball! Classic name. She’s running for Congress in Virginia. And, according to this piece of mail, she was a guest speaker at an EMILY’s List event. Remember EMILY’s List? For me, it was a blast from the past. The acronym stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast.” They’re still around, and their raison d’être, as far as I understand it, is to “empower women”: to enable female candidates to be elected to office. The event Ball spoke at was an “EMpower reception.” (I am not typing lazily: They cap those first two letters.)
Oh, women are in the political swim, all right. Have you noticed how many women are Republican nominees this year? I don’t think, however, that this is the empowerment EMILY’s List has in mind. Looking into the California Senate race last week, I was reminded that 1992 — the year Barbara Boxer was elected — was known as “the Year of the Woman.” Well, 2010 bids to be another Year of the Woman: just with a heavy Republican slant. In California alone, there are Meg ’n’ Carly.
But Republican women, as you know, often don’t count as women, just as Republican blacks don’t count as blacks, and Republican Hispanics don’t count as Hispanics. You remember what that sage Harry Reid said: “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay? Do I need to say more?” Say, I have an idea: Why don’t Democrats make Reid their Senate majority leader? Oh, yeah . . .
And you remember a bumper sticker from 2008, referring to the GOP vice-presidential nominee: “She’s not a woman, she’s a Republican.” You know, I rather like it that way: Let Republican candidates be judged on their ideas and character; and let Democratic candidates be judged on their skin color and genital equipment. Is that too pointed a remark, for this gentle blog, on a lovely late-September day? Maybe so . . .