There was a Tea Party the other day at Politics and Prose book store, in the heart of the Washington's liberal hotbed.  It was a very lovely tea party, attended not by rabid conservatives shouting hateful epithets, but by three extremely proper ladies, who discussed the most pressing political issues of the day in the most refined manner.   Only Linda was drinking tea - a healthful green tea, called "gun-powder mint," taken straight.  Sharron sipped mocha latte "high-test" with natural sugar, while Shelly slurped an iced decaf with honey, there being no artificial sweetener. 

We decided to focus on women candidates, having just read Anne E. Kornblut's recent Washington Post article which posits that there are more women candidates who are making their gender less of an issue. At the end of the article, Debby Walsh, director of Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics said, "It could be a bit of an indication of something resembling progress…I wouldn't want to go completely out on a limb, but let's see where things are when we get to November."

Thus, we began our old-fashioned, civilized tea party by decrying California Republican Senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina's catty comments about her Democratic opponent's "old school" hair. 

Check them both out.

Really! They both look just fine to us. Their hair is very similar, actually, and very much like the ultra-stylish do Linda's had since the 70's. What's the problem?

This race is the first time two women are running against each other for senator in California, so you'd think they'd find more substantive things to talk about. Carly Fiorina is not just a hair snob. She's also the former CEO of Hewlett Packard and has recently successfully battled breast cancer. Nonetheless, she wants to repeal the health care bill. On an unrelated note, she also wants to allow people on the no-fly list to purchase guns.

In this first senatorial race between women, will the people of California choose Fiorina's challenger hair over the incumbent hair of Barbara Boxer?

Also in California, Republican Meg Whitman, former CEO of E-bay, is running against good old former Governor Jerry Brown. No contest there. At least in the hair department.





Perhaps the most interesting race is in Nevada, where Republican Sharron Angle is challenging incumbent Democrat and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid.

Angle, who looks like she has had the same mousy hairdo since high school, is a member of that other tea party that has hijacked the term from refined ladies like us. In the photo to the right, she's being frightened by a tube of fluoride tooth paste. Fluoride in the water is one of the many things that scare her. She's also concerned about fraudulent science on global warming, wants to deregulate the oil industry, ditch the UN and its treaties and abolish Medicare.

She claims to be a member of the "Oath Keepers" - an organization of former military, police and firefighters who want to take up arms against the government. What kind of tea are they drinking? (Maybe Linda should lay off that gun-powder mint stuff.)

Angle is considered the best thing that could have happened to Harry Reid - she's so conservative and possibly a little wacky that he is starting looking better to the people of Nevada.

In South Carolina, the Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley is the favorite in a June 22 run-off election against Rep. J. Gresham Barrett. Born into an East Indian Sikh family, she professed faith in Jesus Christ as a young adult, which got her an endorsement from Sarah Palin, who counts Haley among her pack of "mama grislies" who are running this year.

We vote Haley as "best hair" and not just compared to the grisly and Palin. She wins over all of the female candidates this year.

In the Connecticut race for US Senate, it looks like former World Wresting Entertainment CEO, Linda McMahon, will be the Republican facing the Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, who is the current Attorney General. McMahon, whose 60's era hairdo is still serving her very well, is donating 50 million dollars of her own money to her campaign. Please follow this Wikipedia link for full information on her political background and juicy details on her on-air role in her family's TV wrestling show.

You probably heard that in Arkansas, Blanche [but not bleached] Lincoln narrowly won the Democratic run-off for Senate nominee over Bob Halter. Lincoln voted against the public option in the Health Care Reform bill, which lost her a lot of support. She was elected in 1992 to the House (which was called the "year of the woman"), then moved to the Senate 6 years later. She's considered to be the underdog against her Republican opponent, Rep. John Boozman, who also voted against health care reform.

Roxanne Conlin's primary win in the Iowa Senate race pits her against Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley. Conlin, who has a classic, wholesome look (bordering on plain), has been out-raising her opponent, whose poll numbers are dropping, probably because he is moving further to the right. He voted against health care reform and a bipartisan jobs-creation measure. Conlin's Des Moines law firm website describes her as "a nationally-renowned and respected trial lawyer and pioneer for women's rights." Read more here. She sounds like a real winner. Read more here.

Thus ended our Ladies Tea Party, with Shelly dashing off to repair a troublesome chip in her finely manicured fingernail, Sharron packing for the beach - her first trip since moving into her chic new DC townhouse, and poor Linda, languishing for a week before getting her hair styled at the fashionable Salon Roi on Connecticut Avenue. Meanwhile, she's looking very shaggy.


Editor: Linda LaScola
Contributors: Shelly Livingston, VP Public Policy; and Sharron Caplan, former VP, Public Liaison