Over at Peoples Press Collective, El Presidente has a note about the mini-uproar regarding gender entering into the Colorado Republican Senate primary.

I thought I’d put my two cents in…and these comments are not written while wearing my “he endorsed Jane” hat, but rather just thinking about the politics.

Bringing sex, or rather gender, into the race is tactically smart for Jane. It’s tactically stupid for Ken to try to fight on that turf. He should just ignore those discussions.

Even if Jane’s points relating to her gender win her a small fractional gain among women voters, Ken’s responding is rather like responding to “have you stopped beating your wife?” in the sense that there’s almost no answer Ken can give that 1) gets him more points than it gets Jane, and 2) moves the issue, even though it’s already small, to the background (which is where he should want it.)

I disagree with commenter Val’s assertion that women shouldn’t use sex, or more precisely femininity because we’re not actually talking about sex here, to get what they want. Everybody should use every asset they have. Should good-looking guys not shower and dress badly to level the playing field with others (whether in politics, dating, or whatever)?

Asking a woman to ignore the fact that she’s a woman when running for office is like asking Barack Obama not to notice that he’s black.  And it’s like asking voters not to notice either.  It’s just silly, unrealistic, and politically stupid.  I don’t say this as a Norton supporter.  I’d say it about someone running for city council or whatever.  Use what you have and don’t apologize for it.

There is a deep psychological connection in people’s minds between appearances and other non-superficial traits about people. A person might, for example, equate looking good with having a higher chance of success in a given field or having a nice personality.  Take a look at some of what comes up in this Google search for the term “Attractiveness Halo":
http://www.google.com/search?q=attractiveness+halo

Here’s an interesting line from a University of Michigan study which showed up in that search: “three attributions, sexiness, femininity/masculinity, and liking showed a strong relationship to physical attractiveness, especially for female targets."  If true, Jane’s mentioning of gender, bringing attention to her appearance, is a smart tactic.  And it’s something that does not insult Ken Buck.  But Buck reacted as if it did – and that’s a problem for him.

Now, if Buck could make some statements that would embellish his “real man” studliness without making it sound like he’s sniping at Jane, that would be worthwhile.  But given that Jane is perceived (rightly, I think) to have started the topic, it’s very hard to say anything about manhood or high heels without just sounding defensive.

To the extent that Ken Buck keeps talking about gender, even in response to Jane’s starting the topic, it’s as if Jane is Br’er Rabbit and Ken is throwing her into the briar patch.  It plays right into her hands, just when ballots are arriving in the hands of hundreds of thousands of Colorado voters…including hundreds of thousands of women, most of whom are likely to be more turned off by Buck’s response than Jane’s relatively tame bringing the issue of gender into the race.

This is not a big deal, but in this environment everyone is yelling about everything. I suppose if the election is extremely close, this could turn into a pivotal issue, but in that case anything could be the pivotal issue.  This one is certainly smaller than most but I find it interesting anyway. My intent here is not to boost Jane but simply to look at the plain ol’ politics of this. The analysis would be the same with other names involved.  Ken needs to get back to the issues.  To the extent that he responds to Jane’s gambit, it needs to be only on the issue of electability, which was really Jane’s suggestion, not high heels or other items of attire.

I would also like to respond to Val’s question about how the “sex card” is different from the “race card".  The reason I see is that the race card is intended as a negative, intended to divide people or play on their negative prejudices whereas the gender card is, in my view, intended as an appealing message (not that it would appeal to everyone, or even to most people).  Furthermore, the race card brings up deep-seeded historical issues of slavery and repression next to which discrimination against women pales.  It’s especially true now, in these says of women at the highest levels of everything from industry to politics.