The season of midterm elections in the United States is upon us, and with primaries out of the way, battles between candidates of the major parties are already underway. But in the debates now taking place nationwide, there’s a new breed of candidate afoot.
I’m not talking about the Tea Party, although they’ve certainly produced their fair share of lightning-bolt upsets in the race for Senate and House seats. Some of their female candidates for the Senate like Sharron Angle in Nevada or Christine O’Donnell in Delaware might provide high shock value, but for so many people, it’s more of a disbelieving shock that they actually won their primaries. More intriguing by far are the female pro-business candidates in Connecticut and California, places where the Tea Party movement is not as firmly rooted and where independent businesswomen have instead taken the reins, intending to capitalize on their experience in an election where the economy takes precedence over all else.
In Connecticut, Linda McMahon defeated Rob Simmons in the Senate primary, a respectable politician with a track record of state leadership and national service. Her prior claim to fame stems from her family’s building of World Wrestling Entertainment. She’s used her millions in various ways – she has invested a lot in self-financing her campaign, but earlier in life set some aside for the purchase of a swanky yacht entitled “Sexy Bitch”.
On the opposite coast, Carly Fiorina is using her background as a former executive at Hewlett-Packard to promote her candidacy for the Senate as one of bringing business expertise to the political world. Fellow Californian Meg Whitman extols the same sort of message, asserting that her decade-long tenure as CEO and President of eBay gives her the experience necessary to bring true financial reform to her state if she is elected governor.
Only time will tell if these women will be given the chance to prove their claims. But one thing is certainly clear – the Republican party, and by extension the American political landscape, has permanently been altered. No longer will the Grand Old Party be seen solely as a bastion of male dominance. And women, who usually vote Democrat in larger numbers, may begin to re-examine their choices. In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s famous 18 million cracks in the presidential glass ceiling represented a breakthrough for female politicians. Two years later, the ceiling of the branches of Republican Party – Senate, House, and gubernatorial – already broken through in a few places, may be shattered completely, by a trifecta of blonde billionaires.
