Wendy Davis, Misogyny Magnet

A Wendy Davis run for Texas governor may be just what the Democratic party n eeds as it gears up for the 2014 midterm elections. And thats not just because the pro-choice state senators June filibuster 11 hou rs of talk in which she couldnt lean on her desk, have a drink of water, cede the microphone or change the subject (she was penalized just for putting on a back brace) was so much more hardcore than Republican Ted Cruzs recent Gree n Eggs and Ham reading gabfest in the U.S. Senate. Its not just because her own personal story an absent father, a sixth-grade-ed ucated mother, a teen pregnancy, followed by life as a single mom in a mobile h ome, then community college and, at last, Harvard Law School gives the party that backs her impeccable real people credibility. Its a whole lot more simple than that. MORE: Wendy Davis Eyes Texas Governor Run Blonde, strikingly pretty, outspoken and female, Davis is, to put it bluntly, invalu able as bait. In her short tenure on the national scene, she has elicited an almos t Pavlovian response from anti-woman blowhards. First, Fox News commentator Erick Erickson called Davis Abortion Barbie. Then, a twitter poster, @jefflegal, expressed his support for a gubernatorial bid by the Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott by dismissing Davis as Retard Barbiea rather artless insult that might not have gotten much attention, had the attorney general not tweeted back, Jeff, thanks for your support. And just l ast month, Abbotts top political advisor, Dave Carney, stepped into the Davis-ba shing fray again by tweeting an article from a conservative Texas blog that prom ised in its headline to explain why Wendy Davis is too Stupid to be Governor. Theres every reason to expect that, as a misogyny magnet, Davis, whom The Ne w York Times has described as an Austin fashion icon, will be the gift that keep s on giving all through the upcoming campaign season. Her hair, her clothes, he r pink sneakers; the fact that shes unmarried; the fact that abortion is the issue that brought her to national prominenceall these things sexualize her to a de gree thats unusual for female politicians (as it any accident that Sarah Palin was always dripping with kids?) and they open her up to a very specific, and very ugl y, form of woman-hate. The more hits Davis takes, the better is will be for the Democrats. It was, after al l, a consistent pattern of gender-based disrespect that helped land Democrats t heir 2012 election victories in the U.S. Senate and the presidency. A long pile-u

p of Republican insults to womens dignity, particularly in the area of reproducti ve rights, led President Obama to win the womens vote by a 12-point margin. W omen dont always vote as a unified block; theyre by no means unanimous in th eir support for abortion rights, or for any of the pro-family social policies that te nd, unhelpfully, to be classed together as womens issues. But they have, in re cent years, tended to come together in a common understanding when the yuc k factor in politics the macho posturing, the questionable remarks that cut aw ay at womens hard-won public dignity just gets to be too much. Abbott, sensitized by outrage that followed his Twitter thank-you, has tried to b ackpedal, tweeting his supporters to Stay positive. The admonition, however @Barbie-worthy, hasnt done much to mollify his critics. The Republican partys effort to rebrand itself to women doesnt seem to be working out too well, eithe r. A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll ju st this week found that 33 percent of the women surveyed felt that the party ha d drifted even further away from them since the 2012 election. Only 14 percent of womenand just 11 percent of women younger than 50said that Republic ans had moved closer in perspective to them. Message: we Barbies are no dummies. You cant change a legacy of policies that insult and hurt women through the power of positive thinking.