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Massachusetts,
as blue a state as blue can be, still is far from a
Garden of Eden for female politicians.
Before Andrea
Cabral scored her huge upset win for re-election as
sheriff of Suffolk County, she had been right where
many of the women she addressed recently in the third-floor
meeting room at Summons College have been: underrated,
underestimated and dismissed as serious politicians.
No more for
Cabral. After crushing her challenger, Boston City
Councilor Steve Murphy, last November, she now is being
hailed as the symbol of the “New Boston,” a coalition
of multiethnic, “progressive” voters and advocates who
lifted Cabral to victory and are being widely courted.
Cabral, keynote
speaker at the 34 th annual meeting of the Massachusetts
Women’s Political Caucus, had this message for the bipartisan
organization dedicated to putting more women in office:
It’s all about unity. About seizing the moment.
And about the unique power of women.
“My race (African-American)
and my gender certainly played a role,” Cabral said.
And the power of the sisterhood played the biggest
role of all. “It was the most interesting thing how
many women turned out. Younger women brought their mothers,”
Cabral said. “Groups of nuns in their habits went
to the polls. Some men told me, ‘My girlfriend said
if I didn’t show up today and vote for you, the would…well,
you can fill in the blank.’”
It was an impressive
show of the force female voters can wield when they
get together; this time it was for a woman who got the
job from another woman – the much- scorned former acting
governor, Jane Swift.
“Gov. Swift
took some heat for keeping her promise to appoint a
competent woman – a nonpolitical professional – to the
job, and I shall always be grateful to her,” said Cabral.
But Swift, for a variety of reasons – some her own
fault but others almost surely because female politicians
are held to higher performance standards than men –
was pushed aside in 2002 by Mitt Romney. Just as many
women, thought to have reached too high, have been shunted
aside in Massachusetts for years.
No woman has
ever been elected governor or U.S. senator here. (Swift
moved up from lieutenant governor when then- Gov. Paul
Cellucci was appointed ambassador to Canada in 2001).
And though women constitute more than half the population
of Massachusetts, they hold less than a quarter (24
percent) of the seats in the state Senate and House,
said Mary Fifield, new president of the Massachusetts
Women’s Political Caucus.
We are a long
way from Washing state, where women hold both U.S. Senate
seats; a woman was just elected governor (in a disputed
race); four of the nine state Supreme Court justices
are women; and 49 of 147 state legislators are female.
But MWPC is itching to start the journey.
“The political
world remains ripe for the kind of work our caucus specializes
in,” Fifield, a seasoned activist and political consultant,
said. MWPC, with strong women from both major parties,
provides candidates with skills training, networking
(including access to potential donors but no direct
support) and access to experts. Fifield and MWPC executive
director Jesses Mermell also plan more outreach to the
boardrooms this year for counsel and fund-raising.
Yet it is the
continuity, unity and networking among women of different
ages, lifestyles, occupations and political philosophy
that may be their best resource.
That was clear
from the session I moderated at Simmons, where officeholders
such as state Reps. Alice Wolf and Alice Peisch, Sen.
Karen Spilka, formed Rep. Carol Donovan and Boston Councilor
(and imminent mayoral candidate) Maura Hennigan had
much to teach new prospects – Boston City Council candidates
Patricia White, Susan Passoni and Sam Yoon (there to
learn from the other gender); Dorchester state Rep.
Candidate Linda Dorcena Forry; lieutenant governor hopeful
Deborah Goldberg and Kim Driscoll, running for mayor
of Salem.
Panelists had
their own advice, both inspirational and pragmatic.
Elaine Kamarck, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard’s
Belfer Center, challenged the attendees to sound out
their own “Braveheart” –like cries of freedom and determination
to achieve their goals. Republican consultant Dominick
Lanno reminded the women of the value of consistency,
hard work in turning out the base vote and focus on
security – all traits he said helped President Bush
win re-election.
And Cambridge
pollster John Gorman – who noted that Bush carried a
majority of married women, enough to deliver him the
presidency – had this practical advice for female candidates
that had many laughing and nodding in agreement: Make
sure, he said, that you have a few highly-visible males
in your campaign that you can be seen “bossing around.”
It’s a piece
of atmospherics, no doubt. But a necessary one so
long as female politicians must endure and overcome
double standards on their way to equity.
* Reprinted
with permission from The Boston Herald
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