Looking for a Few Good Women

Seeking Women to Run for State Legislature in 2006

There is a growing movement to recruit and support women from WPA, who will run for the State Legislature in 2006. Currently all of WPA’s State Representatives are men and, especially in light of their recent shenanigans, they are not representing us well.

If you know a woman who may be interested in running for State Representative, Gloria Forouzan of www.run-baby-run.com would like you to contact her. And, in order to mount viable campaigns, they must have candidates in place by early next week. You can email her at rbr@percolater.com .

So, if you agree that we need women in the house, please help www.run-baby-run.com to recruit women of integrity, regardless of political party, by forwarding this information to anyone that you think might be interested.

For more information and to sign up for an email newsletter, please go to:
www.run-baby-run.com

You can read more about this effort in Brian O’Neill’s “You’ve Come A Short Way Baby” column in the 11/22/05 Post-Gazette:

"Run, Baby, Run'' can help women there. The organization might not match dollar for dollar, Ms. Forouzan said, but there will be matching money. E-mail may be sent to rbr@percolater.com .

"Come forward and we'll support you.''

A candidate could win a House primary with fewer than 6,000 votes. Given the scarcity of recent competition, it's hard to be more precise than that, but a door-knocking candidate might reach half that many homes in 12 weekends of work. Twenty doors an hour in a six-hour campaign day is Ms. Forouzan's rule. This isn't an easy game.

The rest of Pennsylvania isn't so hesitant to elect women. Eight of the state's 50 senators are women, as are 28 of the 203 representatives. The female contingent in the statehouse has tripled in the past 25 years, but Pennsylvania still ranks 46th among the 50 states in the percentage of female representation, Ms. Forouzan said.