Hopefully you've already heard of She Should Run. It's a project of the Woman's Campaign Forum, trying to gather nominations for 1,000 pro-choice women to ask to run for political office. There was a dust-up a few weeks ago about why more women didn't get elected in 2006. She Should Run says that's the wrong question. More women need to run for office. Because the more of us there are on ballots, the more likely we are to be able to overcome the sexism that female candidates face, and get into office. Gender-based attack ads and questions about being "taken seriously" are hard to deal with. That's why we need tough women to try.

So, I took the She Should Run challenge, and nominated a smart, strong, politically savvy woman I know. You should do the same. Hell, nominate yourself if you want to. According to the Women's Campaign Forum, less than 1/4 of elected officials in this country are women. That, my friends, is bullshit.

Apparently one of the big barriers is women are more likely to run for office when asked. So ask. And check out this video from a few women in public office talking about how important this is:

3 Comments

July 27, 2007 3:44 PM

[0+]  Roni said:

Awesome! I think this is great particularly because I was on a kick about 2 years ago where I DID want to run for public office and started researching it. My inspiration sort of petered out when I found I had to wait a year because I had just about to move here and most offices required a year of residency. So that's for the reminder!

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July 27, 2007 5:27 PM

[0+]  audrey said:

Someone asking. That what got my mom to run for the school board, and get voted in for three consecutive terms now. She's had the highest vote count of any of the candidates in each election(there usually three seats open and about 6-10 candidates). She now the president of the board and decided before she ran again that this would be her last term. But that's only because she now considering running for a county government seat! In case you can't tell I'm ridiculously proud of my mom.

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July 27, 2007 5:36 PM

[0+]  azliza said:

She Should Run's front page has a video of Hillary endorsing the campaign- she looks exhausted in it.

i nominated my mom. she rocks.

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