Any research that puts my hormones ahead of my brain demands serious skepticism. But the blogosphere is completely abuzz with reports that one Texas university has conducted a study that claims to be able to predict a woman’s vote based on where she is in her monthly menstrual cycle combined with whether she’s married or if she’s a single lady.

No word on infertile or menopausal voters. So what’s up with all that? I’ve got a couple of things to say in my Spin Cycle column at Babble Voices!

And if you have any thoughts on how this impacts women candidates who are running for election, please share!

Image via fox8.com

Image via Jenny Lauck, with permission

Women voters beware. Right-wing attempts to push through tougher voter ID laws may keep you from voting in November.

I’m not talking about zombie moms. I’m not talking about women trying to pull the wool over some poll worker’s eyes in order to vote in a different town. I’m not even talking about undocumented women who some worry might be sneaking into your local voting booth.

I’m talking about women who just haven’t gotten around to changing their names on their driver’s licenses because of the paperwork and time required — either because they’ve gotten married or divorced.

Most of the news covering the GOP’s efforts to keep certain groups from the polls in November focus on the elderly, college students and people of color — groups that trended Democratic in 2008 and helped elect Barack Obama to the White House. While  backers of voter photo identification laws want us to think these are just reasonable efforts to protect us from voter fraud, studies show there is virtually no voter fraud in America to protect us from. And to the extent that such fraud has been found, there has been no impact on the outcome of those elections.

Soooo …. then what would be the other reason to spend so much money and time and effort to fix something that’s not broken? Just some patriots doing their damnedest to protect us by making sure that only 100% pure Americans get to cast their ballots as they worry that our country will be overrun by illegal Communist forces who don’t even take the time to vote for American Idol?

OK, I made that last part up. But the reasons so many on the conservative right give for pushing their unprecedented effort to alienate voters who have legitimate reasons for not having photo identification are as follows:

1. Everyone should have a driver’s license. Yes, that would be nice. But there are plenty of places where people don’t drive to get where they need to go. Often college students haven’t gotten around to driving even though they could. And older voters whose minds are sharp but whose reflexes have slowed down aren’t on the road anymore and don’t need to renew. Are the votes of these groups any less valid because they’re not driving?

2. Voter IDs are free. Except that they’re not. You need an official copy of your birth certificate or marriage license to get one, which costs money. If you don’t live near the places to get the back-up documentation, there’s the cost of gas or cab fare (if you live in a place that has cabs). If you live in a rural area where the only place to get the required documentation is the county seat, we’re talking about the better part of a work day to do it. Conservatives claim $20 or $30 here or there is surely not a barrier. Except for plenty of people in this country, who are legitimately entitled to vote, $20 or $30 is food money for the whole week or the cost of getting to and from work that can’t be spared for other things.

3. People who don’t get an ID are lazy and don’t deserve to vote. Maybe those actual words haven’t been uttered, but that is part of the underlying message from those who believe that only people with government-issued photo IDs should be allowed to vote in the election this November. For those who can’t see that for many people there are significant obstacles, both physically and financially, to getting a government-issued photo ID, it’s apparently morphed into the idea that if you can’t get past those barriers, you’re not deserving of exercising your constitutional right.

But let me tell you about “lazy.”

While it’s pretty easy to change your name on documents and IDs after you get married, it’s harder to switch it back. When I divorced my first husband, it took me months to find the time in my work schedule to jump through all the hoops necessary to change my name, and I even had the judge include language in my divorce decree to make that switch “easier.”  I had to make sure I had official documents and notarized copies of my divorce papers, and had to go to government offices to change my Social Security card and then driver’s license.  Plus I had to find the time to take off from work to do it, because the offices I needed to go to were only open during business hours. So if I couldn’t squeeze it in on a lunch hour, I had to use vacation time or get docked pay to do it. And I had my own car, as well as an employer who was willing to be flexible and understood that there would be long lines I’d have to wait in because everyone else was using their lunch hour for similar official errands. And it was still a time-consuming pain in the you-know-what.

Efforts to cut hundreds of thousands of Americans from the voter lists is anything but innocuous. And even one Pennsylvania lawmaker made it clear (in public, no less) that the main reason for advocating for stricter voter ID laws  in the Keystone State — a crucial swing state — is to ensure a Mitt Romney victory. The right-wing crusade to disenfranchise as many Americans as possible isn’t about voter fraud or protecting a process. It’s to game a system by trying to convince voters that we should fear something that is virtually non-existent.

The studies that reveal there is little voter fraud also show that voter ID efforts do more to prevent eligible voters from casting ballots than to protect us from undocumented, non-citizens trying to wrest our democracy from us for their own nefarious purposes. I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly worried about the nuns who wanted to vote but had an ID issue.  Unless they were these nuns:

But this is a non-issue for women in the 21st century, right? We live in a time when fewer brides change their names when getting married. In my daughter’s school, you could make that argument, where I’d guess about half the moms I know have kept their maiden names rather than changing to their husband’s last names. But across the country, somewhere close to 90 percent of women take their spouse’s last name when they say “I do.”  Factor in a divorce rate of 50% and the fact that almost one-third of eligible women voters don’t possess a government issued photo ID, and it doesn’t take a genius to do the math (or the politics) to realize what’s really going on.

Where I vote, it’s not necessary, at least for the moment, to show an approved photo ID. The poll workers ask for my name and my address and check to see if I’m registered. When I pulled out my purse to rummage for my bifocals so I could see the voting form I was signing last time, they thought I was going for my driver’s license and told me that wasn’t necessary. So, yes, it IS possible that someone could show up at my voting location and claim to be me if they knew my full name, my full address, and the last four digits of my Social Security number. But the odds of that happening are almost as remote as winning the lottery buying one Powerball ticket.

Ladies, you shouldn’t have to worry about this, but why take a chance? If the super-conservatives are going to make a stink about this, there is time to beat them at their own game. I know it’s hard in the dog days of summer when kids are in tow and there’s not even a respite of a couple of hours of summer camp to get to the Social Security office or the DMV or the county courthouse to make sure you’ve jumped through all the hoops to have that official photo ID just in case. But if you are determined to vote in November, please don’t leave your vote to chance. You shouldn’t have to hand over a driver’s license, but you might have to. So let’s help each other out in the next couple of months when it comes to keeping an eye on each others’ kids so we can all make sure we’ve got the appropriate identification for the voting booth. Just in case.

The Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court, even though there was considerable media confusion about that at first. When the first reports came out when the decision was handed down, emotions ran high all across the country — both for those who were praying for it to remain law and for those who had their fingers crossed the conservative court would strike it down. One mom who wasn’t sure what to think, at first. That mother, Sue Wagner, was kind enough to share her thoughts on what this means for her family.

When I first heard the news, I was driving. Diane Rehm was just about to start her morning radio show on Mexican politics when she paused and announced that the decision was out and the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate of the Health Care Reform Act.

I was surprised by the tears that sprung into my eyes.

I switched stations and heard that the individual mandate was upheld.

Wait, what?

At the next red light, I grabbed my phone and pulled up CNN.com. Overturned.

I wiped my eyes as I drove the few blocks home. When I came in the door, my six-year old daughter happened to be standing right there – the kid who makes this all so very important to me.

I sat down at the computer and pulled up every news and social media site I could think of and quickly learned that the Supreme Court had not overturned the very crucial part of the Health Care Reform Act – the individual mandate. My tears flowed again, this time from relief.

I have been worrying about health insurance for seven years. That is when I learned that the baby girl I was expecting had various chronic and congenital health problems. Since then, I’ve had many sleepless nights fretting first over an employer’s self-paid plan that excluded most of the expensive treatments she needed. Later, I rejoiced when we were offered a new PPO plan that covered the expensive treatments, until I discovered that plan has very limited coverage for most of her basic care and the many doctors she sees on a regular basis. I have worried over every co-pay and medical bill. This year, our share of the premium for that plan nearly tripled.

We pay a lot of money in out-of-pocket medical expenses. It makes things very tight, but I feel fortunate that we have, so far, been able to afford it. We have forgone vacations, flute lessons, ballet class, new clothes and other extras, but we’ve managed.

My biggest fears have been for the future. My daughter will eventually need heart surgery. What happens if she reaches her lifetime maximum benefit? What about when she’s an adult? What if she can’t work full-time? What if she wants to be an artist or a writer? What if she doesn’t marry into good health insurance? How will she be able to afford the medications and preventative care she needs to keep her healthy? The Health Care Affordability Act, thankfully, miraculously answers all those questions for us. It may not make anything more affordable for us in the short term. We will still be scrimping to cover our premiums, co-pays, and out-of-network deductibles. But for the long term? The Health Care Affordability Act may mean the difference between life and death for my daughter, something I have been worrying about since before she was born.

Sue Wagner is a native of the DC area. She went to college in Ohio, but came back after graduating, followed by the boy who would become her husband. She lives inside the Beltway, just down the road from the University of Maryland, and can’t picture ever living outside the bounds of 495.In her former life, she was Metro-riding law librarian. Currently, she is a minivan driving, stay-at-home mom to four kids, two boys and two girls, who keep her on the road, on her toes and, more often than she would like, in the laundry room. In her free time, Sue enjoys drinking margaritas and thinking up ways to stay in shape without actually exercising. She blogs about life and parenthood at Laundry for Six.

We haven’t had a guest “mother of intention” for a while, but my wonderful friend Carol Schiller was sharing some amazing thoughts about the recent “debate” about whether women can have it all.  So I persuaded her to share her thoughts with us, and she’s probably going to be sorry, because after this, I’m going to ask her to writer more posts!

In her excellent article for the Atlantic Monthly, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” former Woodrow Wilson School Dean and tenured Princeton professor, Anne-Marie Slaughter tackles the canard that modern women can expect to combine megawatt career success with domestic felicity.

In making her case, Slaughter tackles Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s well-circulated commencement address at Barnard College last year, in which Sandberg described women who don’t “lean in” to their careers as hard and as long as they possibly can as, well, disappointing.

Sandberg told the class of 2011:

We try at Facebook to keep all of our employees thinking big all day. We have these posters in red we put around the walls. One says, “Fortune favors the bold.” Another says, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

(Apparently, Facebook is not a place where the faint of heart are made to feel welcome.) Sandberg followed up her depiction of the office decor with this exhortation:

Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire.

That sounds nice. But maybe better would be: don’t confuse fear with desire. That is, don’t confuse your fear of what society expects with what you actually want.

Slaughter gets many things right, especially her critique of Sandberg, but I wish she had gone further. She doesn’t really challenge the culture of success itself, only the method by which success is to be achieved. After all, this is still a society in which even the pursuit of happiness has become a full time project.

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being passionate about a goal and going full bore on it. But at the end of the day, if even being happy is a project, complete with it’s own to do list, what have we got left where we can just wing it?

In her eye-opening book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, author Susan Cain does a superb job of both describing and critiquing our modern culture of personal success, and demonstrates convincingly how this culture has come to dominate our educational and professional environments. Is it really any wonder that it has taken over our notions of motherhood and personal satisfaction too?

Thus today, everyone is supposed to have a “bucket list”, and woe to the timid, who put things like “go skinny-dipping” on it. Today’s bucket lists are packed with skydiving and Everest climbs, trips to Tahiti and entrepreneurship.

And moms? Well, who has a bigger list of must-dos or else than moms? According to both Sandberg and Slaughter, we had better add finding the right husband to the list, too. Pick the wrong guy and your career is torpedoed for sure.

Slaughter describes today’s working moms in glowing terms, comparing them favorably to marathoners in training. One working mom is even praised as having developed a method of microwaving her food that saves precious seconds each day.

“They [moms] work like crazy, they just work flexibly!” we are told gleefully in the video interview that accompanies the online version of the Atlantic article.

Why is this sort of ruthless domestic efficiency considered admirable? Because this is the only way to get employers to buy in to flexible work schedules? I don’t want to live in a world where my everyday life is run as exhaustingly as a marathon. Do you?

And if combining motherhood with career means doing this, is it any wonder that the relatively small number of women who actually have the luxury of choosing say, “No thanks.”?

An entrepreneur once told me, “I’ll relax when I’m rich.” This is the culture we live in. But I’m not buying it anymore, and I guess neither are a lot of moms. It’s time we reclaim our right to do nothing while the food is in the microwave. And to recover our peace of mind. Whether other people think we’ve “earned” it or not.

Carol Schiller is the Social Media Director at Cozi, the leading calendar and list app for organizing a busy family. A mom of three school-age kids, Carol currently lives in the Seattle area and blogs irregularly at her eponymous website. Disclosure: Carol is a graduate of Barnard College, mentioned in the article.

Birth Control

This year, as never before, the right of women’s to access birth control through their health insurance plans provided through employers, especially those with a religious affiliation, has been hot topic number one. The three remaining GOP presidential candidates all have pretty much the same position – if women want birth control they should have to pay for it themselves rather than have insurance cover it, viewing it not as a health-related issue (even though well over 90% of American women rely on birth control at some point in their lives), but more like Rush Limbaugh has, as a question of sexual activity:

Mitt Romney – Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney used to believe that employer provided health care plans should cover birth control for women, even if the employer had a religious affiliation. Presidential candidate Romney has changed his stance. Romney recently told one voter at a campaign stop, “If you’re looking for free stuff, vote for [Obama].”

Newt Gingrich – Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has been vague on whether health insurance plans should be required to cover prescription birth control. He supported efforts to let employers with a religious affiliation opt out of such coverage. While in Congress, Gingrich consistently opposed federal funding for family planning.

Ron Paul – The U.S. Congressman from Texas Ron Paul, an OB/GYN by training, says the current debate on birth control is “silly.” But in his true libertarian style, he agrees that religiously affiliated employers’ shouldn’t be forced to pay for birth control through insurance plans. He’s introduced legislation that would allow states to ban the sale of contraception. Interestingly, he recently admitted that as a physician he did prescribe birth control to his patients.
When it comes to birth control coverage as it relates to men, none of the candidates has addressed whether insurers should be able to opt out of covering the costs of vasectomies.

Abortion

All the GOP candidates consider themselves to be “pro-life” and oppose abortion, though there are variations in their positions:

Romney – As recently as his 1994 campaign for Senate against the late Ted Kennedy, he considered himself to be pro-choice, stating that it was a woman’s right to choose whether she had an abortion. Today, Romney contends he is staunchly pro-life, but supports a woman’s right to have an abortion in the case of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is at risk. He refused to sign the pledge from the group Personhood USA that life begins at conception.

Gingrich – Gingrich considers himself to be pro-life but believes in a woman’s right to an abortion in the case of rape, incest and the life of the mother. As Speaker of the House in 1995, he Gingrich supported federal funding for abortions in case of rape, incest or where the life of the mother was in danger. However, he has flip-flopped on whether he believes life begins at conception or implantation. Has He has signed the pledge from the group Personhood USA that he will fight to pass laws that say life begins at conception.

Paul – Believes life begins at conception, but supports the availability of the “morning after” pill on a state level for rape victims. Paul has been criticized for his remarks that a woman who was the victim of an “honest” rape should be provided with the morning after pill. Paul has also signed the pledge from the group Personhood USA that he will fight to pass laws that say life begins at conception.

Gay Marriage

All remaining GOP candidates oppose gay marriage and agree that marriage should be reserved for relationships between a man and a woman.  If the remaining Republican candidates are interested in garnering support and money from businesses, they might have to soften their positions on gay marriage rights. Corporations are increasingly coming to conclusion that if they want to successfully recruit and retain qualified employees, they must be more open to creating workplaces that are welcoming to the LGBT community.

Romney – Supports domestic partnership benefits for gay couples, but doesn’t support civil unions or gay marriage. Romney supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act (D.O.M.A.), which bars federal recognition of gay marriage.

Gingrich – Says marriage is a “sacrament” between a man and a woman. He’s been married three times. Helped sponsor D.O.M.A. He has acknowledged he was married to his second wife while having an affair with his current wife, Callista.

Paul –Favors D.O.M.A. on states’ rights grounds. While Paul currently opposes gay marriage, he said in a 2007 interview that he supported the right of gay couples to marry as long as they didn’t impose their relationship on anyone else.

Guns

The remaining Republican candidates all believe the Second Amendment to the Constitution provides for citizens’ right to own to guns:

Romney – Signed the nation’s first ban on assault weapons as Massachusetts Governor in 1994, but in 1995 proclaimed “The Right to Bear Arms” day in that state. Romney told “Meet the Press” during the 2008 presidential campaign that he supports background checks before the purchase of a gun. He was an early supporter of the Brady Act (requiring federal background checks), but now says he is opposed to enacting any additional gun control laws nationwide. Joined the National Rifle Association (N.R.A.) during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Gingrich – Told the N.R.A conference in 2011 that the right to bear arms isn’t about hunting or target shooting, saying “The right to bear arms is a political right designed to safeguard freedom so that no government can take away from you the rights which God has given you.”  Gingrich has received consistently high ratings from the N.R.A. for his position on gun laws. Gingrich has spoken in support of the Gun Free School Zone law, for which he has drawn criticism from the Gun Owners of America.

Paul – Introduced legislation to repeal the 1996 Gun Free School Zones Act. Paul’s campaign site says, “As a congressman, Ron Paul has never once voted for any piece of legislation that would infringe on gun owners’ rights or weaken the Second Amendment.” He has introduced legislation that would repeal the Brady Act and the federal assault weapons ban bill. Ultimately, Paul would abolish the Gun Free School Zones law and supports the right of teachers to carry guns on school grounds.

Affordable Care Act

Generally, the Republican field wants to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.), or as they like to call it ‘”Obamacare.”

Romney – This is a tricky issue for Romney. As Governor of Massachusetts, he stood by a similar universal health care law, which has come to be known as “Romneycare.” He has tried to distinguish the Massachusetts mandate with the federal law that was passed under President Obama but claiming that it is too big and unwieldy, and will be a burden to implement nationally. Romney contends that the federal government should stay out of health insurance legislation, while at the same time saying he’d leave it to the states to pass whatever health care bills they want.

Gingrich – He proposed what he calls his “Patient Power” plan, an amalgam of tax credits and tax deductions that would supposedly make health insurance more affordable. His plan also calls for changes in Medicaid and Medicare, as well as making insurance portable across state lines, rather than connected to Americans’ employment. However, as recently as 2008, Gingrich favored the idea of an individual mandate, asserting that it was “immoral” for those who could afford it not to buy insurance.

Paul – His plan is similar to that of Gingrich. Paul calls for a repeal of the A.C.A, and promotes a combination of tax cuts and deductions to encourage Americans to purchase their own insurance. Paul believes that no one has a right to medical care and so shouldn’t be forced to purchase it through a government regulation.

Fair Pay

The idea of following up on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act with the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act has not been on the minds or lips of the Republican candidates. The Ledbetter law only gives employees expanded rights to sue for back pay if they discover they’ve been discriminated against, while the Paycheck Fairness Act would strengthen the current Equal Pay Act, making it more difficult for employers to discriminate on the basis of gender from the outset of a person’s employment. On a recent conference call, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told me that there is little chance that Paycheck Fairness legislation will come up for a vote anytime this year given the Republican majority in Congress. But that got me wondering – where do the Republican presidential candidates stand on the issue of equal pay for equal work?

Romney – Not on the record commenting one way or the other, but as Governor of Massachusetts Romney favored a law that would require public corporations to disclose in federal securities filings the numbers of women and minorities hired. On a recent conference call with reporters, Romney’s staff didn’t have an answer to the question of whether he supports the Ledbetter Act, and said they’d have to get back to the reporters with an answer.

Gingrich – He doesn’t think there’s any such thing as a gender wage gap and says that equal pay for men in about 15 years is what we should really be worrying about.

Paul – As the lone member of Congress in this group, Paul voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. He opposes the Paycheck Fairness Act.

What issue are you still wondering about in terms of where the candidates stand?  What issues would you like them to be talking about?

While those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle worry about what will happen to our access to birth control and our reproductive health rights if the former Pennsylvania Senator were to become president, many Republican women favor Santorum over Mitt Romney by huge numbers. But why? Is it because he wears his fatherhood on his sleeve? Is it because of his unwavering anti-abortion positions? Could it be his snazzy sweater vest wardrobe?

Santorum has been winning the women’s vote by huge margins, especially in the South. And according to the New York Times, 73% of Republican women voters they polled favor Santorum because he understands their “needs and problems,” while only 52% say the same for Romney. Why such a big discrepancy? One observer notes at the blog Role/Reboot, that Santorum is doing so well with Republican women because of something he calls the “soft patriarchy:”

“By simultaneously embracing traditional gender roles and a decidedly modern emotional vulnerability, Santorum represents a new ideal of conservative Christian masculinity—one that has noticeable appeal to at least one female demographic.”

So can Romney win those women if Santorum leaves the race, as some politicos predict will happen after the Pennsylvania primary? It’s hard to imagine that women who’ve voted for Santorum would switch their allegiance to President Obama, but if this emotional vulnerability thing is real, Mitt is going to have to work overtime to fill those shoes. It’s clear that he’s trying, as his wife Ann is now on the campaign trail trying to convince Republican women to come over to her husband’s side.

Maybe a sweater vest would help?

Image via iStockPhoto/EdStock2

Are you a Super Tuesday voter?  Here are some things you need to know about where things stand and who the front-runners are in each Super Tuesday contest:

Alaska Caucus — Twenty-seven delegates are at stake in the state Mitt Romney won in 2008. It’s open to registered Republicans only and all four remaining GOP candidates are on the ballot.  But Ron Paul is the candidate counting on a win here.  Paul’s strategy has been to focus on caucus states like Alaska, and it’s paid off for him in straw poll victories and delegates he’s garnered in Maine and Nevada where he came in second.  Oil and gas issues are usually a priority for the almost half million voters in this state, so whoever is strongest on natural resources could rule the day.  But Paul has been the only candidate to make the trek that far north, so don’t be surprised if he claims his first non-straw poll win here.

Georgia Primary – If Newt Gingrich doesn’t win the Peach State, the race is pretty much over for him.  Georgia voters sent Gingrich to Congress for 20 years and he still considers this his home state, even though he and Callista are firmly ensconced in Virginia.  Early voting in Georgia is underway, so it’s no surprise that Gingrich has spent a lot of time here, ignoring other states that he most likely would not have won anyway.  Polling has Gingrich leading Rick Santorum here by 15 percentage points, with Mitt Romney in third place. With 76 convention delegates up for grabs, it’s safe to say Georgia is a prize all of them would love to claim.

Idaho Caucus — Ron Paul is pending lots of money here, using some of it for an attack ad entitled, “Three of a Kind.”  Idaho isn’t a strike it rich state when it comes to delegates — 32 are up for grabs here.  But Paul is chugging along and if he wins here, he’d use them bargaining chips on issues he wants to see in the party’s official platform (can you say Federal Reserve?).  An online straw poll puts Paul ahead of Romney here, even though this is a Mormon heavy state with a strong get-out-the-vote organization for Romney.

Massachusetts Primary — We all know Mitt Romney is keeping his fingers crossed that he doesn’t lose in this, one of his many “home” states.  Romney, as the former Massachusetts Governor, would be supremely humiliated if things are as close in Massachusetts as they were in Michigan.  The good news for Romney is that one recent poll shows him with a huge lead over Santorum, his closest rival there, by a whopping 48 points!  While it’s never good to count any electoral chickens, unless Romney has some sort of Michael Dukakis moment, it looks like even with the state’s proportional approach to allocation, Romney could win most of Massachusetts’ 41 precious delegates.

North Dakota Caucus – This is Ron Paul territory, or at least he hopes it is. 28 delegates are up for grabs here.  Paul is ahead in fundraising here and as we know, in politics, money talks.  Some observers are saying this state is Paul’s best chance for an outright win.  While he didn’t put North Dakota in a victory column in 2008, he did well, getting over 20 percent of the caucus vote.  Many voters here like Paul’s support for allowing hemp to be grown, as advocated by the North Dakota legislature, which is grown across the border in Canada to make lotions, paper, clothing and bio-fuels, but which the federal government won’t allow.

Ohio Primary — This is the big “get” state on Super Tuesday, not just in terms of its 66 total convention delegates, but also by what the outcome in this swing state could say about the overall Republican race.  One analyst notes that Ohio has a slightly more evangelical population than Michigan, which Romney just won, which explains why Rick Santorum maintains a lead here.  Santorum’s best bet for a victory in Ohio is to make sure voters get the ‘if you liked Mike Huckabee (the 2008 Ohio primary winner), you’ll love me’ memo.  At the moment, Santorum leads in the polling, but Ohio is called a swing state for a reason — anything goes and anyone could pull out a win on Tuesday.  Ohio voters will also be choosing from among six GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate race to decide who will run against Democrat Sherrod Brown in the fall.

Oklahoma Primary — Romney isn’t likely to walk away with the 43 convention delegates up for grabs here in the Sooner State.  Santorum has a huge 20 point lead over Romney, though voters here actually preferred Newt Gingrich last fall.  While Romney has trailed in the polls here for months, one report shows he’s gaining steam — not because they like him better than the other candidates, but because increasing numbers of Oklahomans thing Romney is the candidate who can beat President Obama in the general election.  Oklahoma Democrats will also have a choice to make for a presidential candidate.  President Obama has three opponents on the primary ballot here.  While it’s virtually impossible that Obama won’t take a win here, at least Oklahoma Democrats have a choice on the ballot.

Tennessee Primary – Santorum is leading here by about 18 points according to one poll, but the difference in support between Romney and Santorum is shrinking and some observers expect this to be a neck and neck race for the 58 delegates at stake.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won here in 2008, so there are expectations that Santorum, who’s viewed as the more religiously conservative candidate, could prevail here, even though Romney has raised more money in Tennessee than his GOP competitors.  Gingrich is still trying to make a run for votes here as part of his strategy to focus on Southern states.

Vermont Primary – Romney is ahead here in the state neighboring Massachusetts, but only by about seven points.  He’s got the support of a fellow New-Englander, former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, who just recently announced to Vermonters that they should vote for Romney.  He’ll probably need that endorsement, as some election watchers there say Santorum is starting to surge in a state that Romney probably thought was in the bag.

Virginia Primary — This race will be particularly interesting because Santorum and Gingrich aren’t on the ballot.  Neither one of them rounded up enough signatures to get a place on the ballot.  They lost their court appeal (initially filed by Rick Perry) to get into the contest that has 49 delegates, so Virginia Republicans have two choices — Romney or Paul.  That should make for an interesting outcome for Paul who has consistently ended up at the back of the pack in most of the primaries so far.  While Romney currently has an overwhelming 35 point lead over Paul here, Paul is still doing well with the group he seems to connect well with — younger voters.

So there you have it.  All the information you need to know about where things stand for the four major Republican presidential contenders in the ten Super Tuesday states.  To win their party’s nomination, someone will eventually have to come up with 1144 delegates.  What will things look like on Tuesday evening?

You can get in on a special iVillage live chat with MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner, iVillage Chief Correspondent Kelly Wallace and me starting at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, March 6!

A version of this was originally posted at iVillage, where I’m leading the election coverage for 2012!

Image via iStockPhoto/Steve Debenport

Women decide elections.

That’s a fact that’s been proven by a variety of studies.  Yet, political parties and candidates often don’t want to engage with women in any meaningful way.  And when it comes to women voters who happen to be moms, well, it’s just been easier for so-called political masterminds to put mothers in a corner.  You know the ones — they call us soccer moms and security moms, Walmart moms and recession moms.  For some reason, they’re willing to chat all day with cable news talking heads and the big money donors about the array of views they have, but when it comes to truly wooing the women’s vote, candidates usually fall short because they believe they have our votes in the bag if they just talk about gas prices and groceries.

And that gets a little annoying.  I know that many of the contributors and interviewees for my book  Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America expressed that, and were pretty tired of campaigns doing the ‘we feel your stressed out mom pain, so give us your vote’ dance.

So will it change for the 2012 election?  Can it change?  Guess what, all you suburban moms — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced that you’re the ones that they want!  The bad news is that they’re still calling us soccer moms.

“… [T]he unaffiliated ‘soccer mom’ in ‘independent, fairly affluent’ suburban districts is the ‘unique subset of voters that I obsess on, absolutely obsess on., ” said Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), who is heading up the DCCC this campaign season.  Maybe I should be flattered.  No man has really been obsessed with me since my husband was doing the courting.  (I guess I can’t really count Joe Jonas as being obsessed, although he did touch my back in a photo op recently!).

Israel told a think tank crowd that the DCCC strategy is to target independent-minded women who are supremely ticked off over the whole issue of the GOP trying every way possible to limit access to contraception.  And that’s a good way to engage, especially for families who know they’re just squeaking by economically and need to make sure they don’t end up with more mouths to feed.

But here’s the thing I’d tell the Congressman if he asked me (not that he has, but I would happy to swing by his office anytime) — women voters want to be treated like individuals, not like some monolith (or for mothers, a “momolith”).  If the Democratic party really wants the support of a country full of suburban moms (the ones who haven’t taken up with the tea party), I’d suggest reading my book and spending a little time with the women online who are serious influencers.  Not the traditional political writers they usually talk to, but the real women influencers.  I just came back from a conference full of women and while I certainly didn’t talk to each and every attendee, the ones I did talk to, of all political persuasions,  were hopping mad about anyone in the government trying to take away their birth control.

That’s a serious vote getting opportunity if done the right way.

Congressman Israel, you’re on the right path, but your strategy needs some tweaking.  I’m happy to send a copy of my book your way and have a confab session if you think it would help.  But even if you don’t, just don’t make the mistake of lumping all the moms you’re wooing into a single basket.  We don’t want to be branded as  “birth control moms” any more than we wanted to be labeled all those other things.  It might take a little extra time to reach out to us, but trust me — it will be worth it in the long run.

And if the GOP is smart, they’ll take a page from this “suburban mom” playbook, too.  Women decide elections and there’s nothing wrong with some serious political wooing.  We don’t need flowers and chocolates, but we do need some eye contact.

Image via iStockPhoto/EdStock2

Rick Santorum has found his footing as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.  He’s gaining attention by the day, which is borne out by recent polls that put him in a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney, the GOP pick who was supposed to be the inevitable challenger to President Barack Obama.  But with so many vocal Republicans steering the ‘anyone but Romney‘ bandwagon, the former Senator from Pennsylvania has gained serious national momentum.

While Santorum seems a lot more comfortable in his political skin when he’s in front of the camera now than just a few weeks ago, some of the things coming out of his mouth have pundits and supporters alike scratching their heads.  Given the extreme nature of some of his views, I can only infer that he’s not concerned about being president, because any candidate worth their salt knows that the much-coveted independent voters won’t go his way with the positions he’s taking.

Here are some of Santorum’s recent memorable, or questionable, provocative moments to help you decide — is Santorum’s current fire in the belly attitude and willingness to show his super conservative views a positive or a negative as he heads toward Super Tuesday?

1. He meant the environment, not Islam.  When Santorum’s press secretary recently appeared on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, to talk about the candidate’s views on the environment, she criticized the President’s environmental positions, saying they were established in connection with what she called his “radical Islamic policies.”  Spokesperson Alice Stewart later said she misspoke, but take a watch and decide for yourself whether it was a mistake or whether, in light of past Santorum comments questioning the President’s religion, whether she intended for the slip up to happen, since she was already talking about Obama’s “phony theology,” a theme that her boss carried over to a campaign event over the weekend.

2. Ladies in the military.  Santorum believes the recent Pentagon decision to give women soldiers an increased combat role is a bad one because the increased “emotions” that would result between men and women could jeopardize the military missions.  Interestingly, women weren’t the only ones to take exception to this stereotypically outdated thought.  Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell — whose daughter is in the military — expressed his concerns about the inferences he was afraid people would draw from Santorum’s questions.

3. Public education is bad.  Suggesting that parents should be in charge of their children’s education, Santorum told a crowd that public schools are “factories” that don’t serve our children well and that more kids should be home-schooled.  Now, I know better than to wade into the home school vs. public school conversation, but is it realistic to believe we can all return to a pre-industrial revolution era when children were taught at home because we had an agricultural based society?  This is a tough one for Santorum if he wants to sweep the upcoming Super Tuesday contests, since close to 90 percent of American children attend public schools, or as he likes to call them when he’s making stump speeches, “government run schools.”  That’s an interesting perspective from a man who, as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, took $100,000 state funds from a Pennsylvania public online charter school to educate his kids.

4. No more amniocentesis for you.  That’s Santorum’s stand on that prenatal test, at least if you expect your insurance to pay for it.  Santorum said at a recent campaign stop that prenatal testing leads to increased abortions.  When confronted on CBS News about that statement, Santorum held firm on his position that insurers shouldn’t be required to cover tests that could lead to more abortions.

5. He’s really for women’s equal rights.  That what he says he meant in his book, and that it’s just the media mischaracterizing what he said.  Backing off comments about feminists, saying that he really is just worried about all women have equal rights to make whatever decision they want when it  comes to working outside the home or being a traditional stay-at-home mom.

6. Find an aspirin and call me in the morning.  Santorum Super PAC funder Foster Friess says American ladies don’t need insurance companies to pay for birth control.  Just do it like they did in his day — women just need to hold an aspirin in between their knees if they’re thinking about getting intimate, and no pregnancy will follow!  Santorum says he doesn’t know why people are still asking him about a bad joke made by a supporter.  But Friess isn’t just any supporter.  He’s the major financial supporter of Super PAC that’s aligned with Santorum.  And while the GOP hopeful might not have planted that bug in Friess’ ear, Santorum has been open about his desire to ban the availability of contraception, even though the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that the right to obtain contraception is a constitutionally protected privacy right.

A version of this post was originally published at iVillage, where I’m honored to be the 2012 Election Editor/Correspondent for iVote. And for more insight on what women online are thinking about the campaign and how they think about politics, you can my my book, Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America, an Amazon bestseller!

Image via Joanne Bamberger/All rights reserved

Much ado has been made about Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, for its focus on the First Couple’s marriage and the role that First Lady Michelle Obama has a White House influencer. Critics (of both Michelle Obama and Kantor) have chimed in with the question, “Why do we need to know about married life in the White House?” That’s easy – getting to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a team effort, whether voters like to admit that or not.

Many conservatives have taken exception with how Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama fashioned their stints as First Wives, while praising women they’ve described as more “traditional,” like Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan. But the fact of the matter is that the so-called traditional First Lady model has been an activist one for decades. Reading The Obamas reminded me I had a copy of Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages that Shaped Our Recent History on my shelf, which examines first marriages from Woodrow Wilson through Bill Clinton. And guess what? It turns out there’s plenty of political power in being a First Lady, even if it’s sometimes behind the scenes.

Of course we know Eleanor Roosevelt was an active First Spouse, especially since her husband FDR was limited in his travel due to his polio. But other extremely influential “helpmates” include Edith Wilson, who essentially ran the White House after Woodrow Wilson’s stroke in his second term, and Barbara Bush, who is credited with coining one of her husband’s most famous phrases about a “kinder and gentler” nation.

So in 2012 it’s not a fluff question to ask, “What do we need to know about the wives of the remaining GOP candidates?” Do they fit the mold of a Bess Truman, who inspired her husband Harry S Truman, but was mostly hands off when it came to day-to-day politics, or do they follow more of a Bill and Hillary Clinton “two for the price of one” relationship? Here are a few tidbits to help make you decide:

Ann Romney – Mitt Romney has openly talked about the fact that his wife Ann is the glue that holds the Romney family together. She’s never held a job outside the home since they married, and she likes to brag that even though they have incredible wealth she still folds her own laundry. Some reports suggest Ann is the one who’s encouraged Mitt to run for president, and in one interview Mitt acknowledged that has Ann pushed him to do things he might not have done otherwise, including running for governor of Massachusetts.  Maybe it’s really Ann who wants to be President?

Callista Gingrich – We already know a lot of infamous things about Callista, the second mistress and third wife of Newt Gingrich. On the eve of the South Carolina primary, Newt’s second wife accused him of wanting an “open marriage” so he could be with his wife and then-girlfriend Callista. Interestingly, conservative religious voters there didn’t shun him for that. So could Callista be Newt’s “secret weapon” that will take him at least to the Republican Convention? That’s entirely possible. While she doesn’t say much on the campaign trail and she seems quiet at Newt’s side with the overly-perfect Nancy Reagan wannabe look, don’t underestimate the role this former Capitol Hill staffer. Gingrich’s campaign has been declared DOA several times, but some news reports contend that Callista is the one who held the effort together to give her husband a chance for the presidency. Perhaps she’ll be the subject of Iron Lady 2?

Karen Santorum – While Rick Santorum’s campaign plays up Karen Santorum’s role as a mother, she is no June Cleaver. She’s got degrees in law and nursing, and spent several years in the challenging field of neonatal intensive care. But her past could be the last nail in the coffin for her husband’s campaign. Rick Santorum is the darling of the religious right, especially for his unwavering views on abortion. But stories have been circulating about the fact that in her college days Karen had a relationship with an abortion provider, and questions remain about whether Karen herself had an abortion, something the couple has characterized as a premature delivery. If her husband’s supporters give his wife a pass on these personal questions, it’s a safe bet that someone who’s had to endure the Socratic method, moot court and law review will have a thing or two to say about policy issues if she’s the next First Lady.

Carolyn Paul – Ron Paul’s wife grew up in an era where girls generally didn’t ask boys out on dates. But she did. The Pauls met in high school and she’s the one who asked him on their first date at a time in America where that was pretty unusual. I think that episode tells us a little bit about what kind of First Lady Carolyn (who likes to go by ‘Carol’) Paul would be. Even though Ron Paul has been in the political spotlight for decades, there’s not a lot of information we know about Carol Paul or what kind of influence she might have if he lands in the White House. But bold actions can speak volumes, and based on the few things we do know about Carol Paul, she’s no shrinking violet.

A version of this was originally posted at iVillage, where I’m hanging out as the iVote Editor/Chief Contributor for the 2012 campaign season!