Putting out for women

Martha Stewart played nice at this year's glittery, bipartisan Women's Campaign Fund benefit -- but Al Franken couldn't resist tormenting the GOP.

By Rebecca Traister

Read more: Presidential Race, U.S. Senate, Women, Congress, Martha Stewart, Politics, Fundraising, Rebecca Traister, Life

March 16, 2006 | The scene at Monday night's annual WCF benefit, to which I was invited as a special guest and as a journalist, felt just like old times -- old election-season times, that is. At the Doyle Gallery on New York's Upper East Side, some of Manhattan's wealthiest political donors packed taut-cheek to smooth-jowl among a bevy of candidates, talking about the political heft of the women's vote, sounding very much like they did back in 2004 -- when we also understood how the women's vote could make a difference.

But wait, it's not 2004 anymore. Now we have a terrifying Supreme Court; they're trying to ban abortion in South Dakota; insurance companies are not paying for birth control anymore; the healthcare system is eroded; we're still at war. Now the women's vote -- and women's leadership -- really will count. Right? It's time for a Gingrich-style midterm revolution, except that this time, deliverance is going to come in the form of female candidates, mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore.

Everyone at the WCF (formerly the Women's Campaign Fund) Parties of Your Choice benefit certainly thought so. Pinched between sofas and end tables, it was hard to maneuver toward any of the luminaries mingling amid the damask. But you could see them: There was former Planned Parenthood chief Gloria Feldt chatting up Glamour editor Cindi Leive. Teresa Heinz Kerry had come in -- was she wearing a scarf or just standing behind a brightly colored lampshade? Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., kibbitzed near Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and "Dr. Judy" Kuriansky from the fabled "Love Phones" radio show.

In the center of the party, United Action for Animals president Gary Kaskel was explaining why, from his point of view, women are preferable politicians. "They are more sympathetic to the plight of factory farm animals and animal testing," he said. "I don't know why, except that they usually have a more humane nature."

Just next to him was cherubic Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, who said he first worked on a campaign as a boy, selling buttons for his neighbor Bella Abzug's 1970 run for Congress. "Look around this room," he said. "A night like this symbolizes what's wrong with the system. So much of it is about money and connections, and the fact is that the boys have had more long-term access to those kinds of networks and connections."

Designer Kay Unger was talking to Alexandra Lebenthal, former head of brokerage firm Lebenthal & Co. "You know they just elected a female president in Chile!" said Unger. "This country is so backwards. They are fine with women leaders in countries where women are hardly as free as they are here."

Coming through a fuzzy mike was the voice of spritely new WCF president Ilana Goldman, talking about the South Dakota abortion ban, "This is not just about abortion," she said. "This is all about control. And for the women and men who support us, it's time to take that control back." Goldman was talking about the night's honorees, WCF board chair Margaret Kavalaris, Pennsylvania Democratic congressional candidate Lois Murphy, and Idaho Republican congressional candidate Sheila Sorenson. Goldman talked about the nonpartisanship of the WCF, noting that a citation presented that evening had been signed by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Keynote speaker Al Franken was not as clap-happy about bipartisanship as his hosts.

Franken joshed, "I agree that the South Dakota ban was about control -- control over abortion," and wasted no time in pointing out that Collins and Snowe had voted for Alito. "I don't know how you get money from this organization and vote for Samuel Alito," he said. The crowd was silent. Franken was clearly touching a raw nerve -- the one that remembers how a bunch of Republicans railroaded choice groups into supporting them, running off with their money and still voting for likely anti-choice judges.

But seriously, folks, Franken said he realized this was a hands-across-the-aisle kind of shindig. "So the RNC is not so great on this issue," he said with a shrug, "but it is so great on so many other issues!" Pause. "Like voting for Samuel Alito!" Franken couldn't let it go. "Just what do you think the Concerned Alumni of Princeton were so concerned about?" he asked. "Do you think they were worried that the language labs needed some sprucing up?"

"Women!" shouted someone who was standing just across a piece of furniture from me. "Right," said Franken. "They were concerned about women. And blacks. So I just hope that when you're cutting new checks, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins don't have many zeros at the end of theirs. Or maybe there should be a zero in the first column."

The speeches done, the crowd began milling with vague intent to head out to the smaller dinner parties being hosted around the city. Former 12-term Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder was close to the door, swarmed by admirers. "You're a hero to a lot of us," said moderate Republican Florida state Rep. Nancy Detert, to whom Schroeder replied, "You're doing God's work." Detert, who supports abortion rights and broke with Republicans in refusing to support government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, is one of seven candidates vying for chad harpy Katherine Harris' 13th Congressional District seat.

"The money is a little easier than it was," said Schroeder about the differences between her political career and current prospects for women. Schroeder contemplated a presidential run in 1987, and was famously felled by the press for crying during her announcement that she had decided against it. "But neither party is as supportive as we'd like. I think now there are so many women running because they're fed up with the incompetence. If women ran their homes like these guys have been running the country" -- here Schroeder made a gesture with her hand at her throat -- "they would be in big trouble!"

Next page: Congressional candidate Coleen Rowley, roast chicken and gnocchi, and Martha Stewart