The women’s vote is going to get a lot of attention in 2012, and for good reason, since candidates are going to need to fight to earn every vote they get.

In the midterm election of 2010, and for the first time since 1982, more women checked the box for the Republican candidate over the Democratic candidate when they cast their vote. That wasn’t a fluke – it was the result of lots of hard work and the concern of women about the state of the country and the families and friends they love.

While fewer women overall are serving in Congress than before 2010, running for office isn’t the only way to get involved. Increasingly, women are upping their participation in lots of ways, including opening up their checkbooks for candidates they support. Yet the largest growth in participation is in grassroots political activities, and women finding new and sustainable ways to hold their elected officials accountable.

One group, Liberty Lunch, invited me to speak to them in Lincoln, Nebraska in May – and I found out why this effort is one worth growing.

What started as an experiment among girlfriends over lunch has turned into a force of nature, where public officials clamor to be invited to speak and convince these women to back their policy agendas. Their efforts have created a group of savvy, politically active citizens who aren’t afraid to throw their collective voices into the fray. Recently, they even pooled resources to run an ad against Senator Ben Nelson in response to the “Cornhusker kickbacks” he received, because they were so outraged by what seemed like their Senator taking a bribe for a policy Nebraskans didn’t want.

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While you were watching the political meltdowns…

Say you work hard and take a risk to start a business providing a good or service. The business is going fairly well and you decide to apply to get a federal government contract, because you can provide the result on time and on budget.

You’re totally qualified and the best person for the job. But, there’s a catch: In the past two years, you’ve given money to an organization that the current administration doesn’t like. You’re never told why, but you don’t get the contract. Was the decision based on merit? Or your donations?

You’ll probably never know. And what’s more, you probably won’t take the chance again and will stop donating to groups you worry aren’t going to sit well with the current group of government contract decision-makers (t name two opposing groups: National Right to Life or Planned Parentood).

You’re probably thinking this could not happen in America, right? Wrong.

Here’s what’s happening: The administration is planning to have President Obama sign what’s called an executive order, which is a policy tool that’s used when you don’t need – or don’t want to ask for – congressional approval.

Presidents have done this for decades, but rarely is an administration so brazen as to use it for purely political reasons. In this case, people will undoubtedly be discouraged from donating to a cause or political organization that they care about if it isn’t in line with the current administration, because getting the contract is much more important to their livelihoods.

Full article here

                          

The young woman from south Kivu province went into the forest outside her local village to fetch wood for her family’s stove, as women across the Democratic Republic of Congo do every day. But, like scores of other women in her country, she was accosted by rebel soldiers and raped.

“When I returned home, my husband kicked me out,” she said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA). “He said I had probably gotten AIDS. I lost my child, and now I’ve given birth to another child from the rapes.”

While the world aches for Japan and sympathizes with freedom seekers in the Middle East, it averts its gaze from another crisis: the epidemic of sexual violence in the Congo, where hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been intimidated, harassed, and tortured for the last 15 years.

Rape is a tactic of war in the Congo. In their fight against the Congolese government, rebel soldiers in eastern Congo use rape to coerce the allegiance of the local population.

Monitoring groups such as Human Rights Watch document the tragedy. World leaders, including Secretary of State Clinton, decry it. High-profile advocates including Eve Ensler, Ben Affleck, and John Prendergast campaign to stop it. The United Nations has 20,000 peacekeeping troops on the ground in the Congo, yet even this force is overwhelmed by the scope of the violence.

Full article here

                          

It occurs to me that President Obama owes a debt of gratitude to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Why? Their cooperation to advance a resurgent conservative movement keeps saving President Obama from himself.

For the first two years of his administration, the president’s intentions, instincts, and indecisiveness stood in the way of what the country was expecting from hope and change. Over that time, a new wave of public opinion rose, ultimately cresting and swamping the White House in the November 2010 mid-term elections in which President Obama suffered an historic defeat. That wave was considered fleeting by many political pundits, and was framed as weak in strength by the liberal ruling class. The Tea Party movement was dismissed as something to be placated and ignored, rather than taken seriously and addressed.

Obama’s seeming entertainment of Tea Party ideals must have made Democrats cringe. How they must have held their noses and averted their eyes as it looked like he’d chosen his political future over his principles. He couldn’t really mean it, they thought—triangulation was simply the best way to pull one over on the Tea Party supporters.

Six months later, the conservative movement is growing. The Democratic communications machine churns out tiresome talking points which that lack both new ideas and a serious tone. How people snorted when they heard the accusations that Republicans were waging a war on women, and that they wanted seniors to eat cat food and to go without health care. C’mon guys—that is so 1990s. The public isn’t falling for that one anymore.

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Setting aside the swipes at his predecessors . . .

From a communications standpoint, I think Obama’s speech tonight fell short of its needs and expectations. I know he reads a speech well, but the cadence is always the same — it’s as if you could take any of his major addresses and guess exactly how they are going to go. And the sentences often lead to head-scratching: the mind wanders — thinking, did he really just say that? Do they really believe those words?

I agree strongly that people who long to be free will look to the United States, and I’m glad he gave voice to that sentiment. I don’t think I heard a clear distinction about why we need to protect Libyans but not others — but perhaps reporting on the speech will make that clear.

Alas, this speech is like others the president has given that call to mind the old saw about Chinese take-out: at first you’re full — but an hour later you’re thinking, I’m still hungry.

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Does anyone else see the irony of the president last night calling on a country in the middle of a political crisis to allow for open access to information and a free media … and then today holding a stills-only event in the Oval Office for a bill signing?  A bill signing?!  And for a treaty that they called a major signature foreign-policy achievement? C’mon.

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As relationships go, America’s “marriage” to her president seems to have calmed down a bit. The tension ebbed after the lame duck Congress went home. A kind of truce was called over the holidays, of course. And it continued while citizens around the country mourned the loss of life in Arizona and marveled at the heroic strength of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

But a “truce” is not the same as a good marriage. Let’s be honest, to keep things interesting in any union, you need a little spark. Relationship advisors tell us one of the most important things we can do to keep from getting divorced is to keep the embers hot.

Things started cooling off when America began to feel she’d married the wrong guy. In addition to frustration over the policy proposals, America also felt unclear about what her president really believed. Some on the right think President Obama is the most left wing president we’ve ever known, while some on the left think he isn’t delivering on his campaign promises to them. And then there are the independents who voted decisively against him in the midterms — they just don’t know what to think about him.

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Before every commitment, there’s a moment when you look at your partner and think, “Do I really know you?” When the answer is settled in your heart, that’s when you decide that you’re all in. But if you’re still asking that question after the wedding, there are sure to be troubled waters ahead.

Just this past week, 2 years after his inauguration, USA Today’s cover story asked, “Who is President Obama?”

Shouldn’t we know that by now?

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I predict the new Congress will do something useful right away: Reverse the ban on good, old-fashioned and ordinary incandescent light bulbs. Since the ban passed in 2007, some – and I’m not naming names – have been stockpiling the old bulbs, picking up a pack every time they pop into a store before the phaseout is complete in 2014.

The new bulbs give off a blue-ish tint that casts living rooms in cold tones, not warm glows, and their high levels of mercury can be harmful if a bulb is broken. The timing of the ban comes just when Americans have had it with Washington meddling in their lives – they draw a line at their lamps.

While sold as a way to create jobs and save consumers money, neither of those claims have come true. In fact, 200 people in Virginia lost their jobs after a major manufacturer of incandescent bulbs closed. Where are the newfangled bulbs made? China, of course.

A bill to repeal the ban was introduced in the House in the fall. After another holiday of blue-ish-looking Christmas lights and trying to read under their so-called environmentally friendly bulbs, Americans will be grateful when the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), flips a switch to reverse the ban.

Piece published here