Today is the much-hyped political circus. I can’t help but think this going to be like a big Hollywood movie. Some special effects, dramatic pauses and feel-good platitudes but at the end of the day the same old scene that gets played over and over again.

Susan B. Anthony List announced that Congressman Marsha Blackburn will be one of the Republicans at the summit. Blackburn is a tough, fiscal and social conservative. It also helps to have a woman articulating pro-life views. Plus she’s from Tennessee. Not that important of a factor, but she’s part of the delegation from my state.

Independent Women’s Forum raises some good points. Let’s scrap this bureaucratic monstrosity and find real answers that actually lower costs, such as tort reform and portability. The only problem is that those two issues directly hurt special interests that are long-time Democratic supporters. Thus, President Obama is at a crossroads. He can pass actual health care reform that will save money and make the market more affordable for all Americans. Or he can grow an increasingly bloated government with money that we don’t have and lower the quality of healthcare for all Americans. Option A actually helps people, while Option B protects his special interests. Sadly, I’m fairly certain that Obama will go with Option B, particularly since unions have been given special consideration.

But can he actually pass something? Can the anointed one, who entered his presidency with approval ratings in the high 70s and majorities in both houses, actually pass some type of major legislation before the mid-term elections? It’s not looking so good for the Dems. I hope that my Democratic friends on the Hill are job hunting.

Hot Air and Daily Caller question if Pelosi has the votes. House numbers have changed since the December vote while outrage over healthcare has only increased. February to November is a much shorter time period to remember a vote than December to November. House Democrats need this vote over and forgotten, and the American people are clearly tired of this debate. A CBS survey reports that 53% of Americans don’t believe we can afford to pass this legislation, which is more expensive than the Senate bill and provides funding for abortions.

Then there’s the problem of the vice president. Perhaps, we should make a new euphemism: out of the mouth of Biden.

The emergence of conservative women is invigorating on the right and baffling to the left. A.C. Kleinheider’s piece in the Nashville City Paper would be funny if it didn’t capture the begrudging puzzlement of the larger media as to why the conservative movement suddenly looks so female:

Beyond a steady rightward shift and an increasingly reactionary rhetoric, conservative leadership is taking on another characteristic — it’s becoming more female. Both nationally and in Tennessee, the most beloved and vocal conservative leaders these days seem to be women.

Memo to Kleinheider: conservative women have always been here.  His comments confuse me. Does he not closely follow Tennessee and national politics? The existence of women on the right is hardly new:

Women need to be embraced as leaders — but not out of fear or necessity. It should happen the right way, or else the Right will merely be seen as a bunch of weak-willed reactionary little boys sending their women out to do their fighting for them.

Michele Bachmann was elected before Sarah Palin. Marsha Blackburn’s been involved in Tennessee politics for a long time now. Robin Smith was chairwoman of the TN GOP before Palin was on the scene. In order to have so many women running in 2010 means that women have been working up the ranks of the party and active in their communities for many years. It takes a long time to build up the name recognition, fundraisers and social capital to run for office. I’m surprised that he failed noticed that.

In fact, Republicans and conservatives have seen many of the “first” women across a number of categories. Labels and identity politics are just not as important to us. Just because the media suddenly noticed that women were in the conservative movement, doesn’t mean that we weren’t always there. Most of my political viewpoints come directly from my mother, who became a staunch conservative in the early 80s.  We’ve always been here. Now we’re getting the recognition that we deserve.

Palin is the catalyst not the movement.

Ironically, we owe it to the feminists and liberals in Congress for galvanizing all of the suddenly-visible conservative women that are shocking! Kleinheider.

This movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. Palin was the catalyst and should be analyzed, but the media, liberals and bloggers need to look at the bigger picture. Conservative women have always been in the movement, but Sarah Palin was the first woman to resonate with us. Prior to Palin, I always admired Elizabeth Dole. However, she was a DC insider with an Ivy League education. I could admire her (and the struggles she faced at Yale) but couldn’t identify with her. When Palin arrived, we had someone who reflected us.

Had the media and feminists said, “Great. The conservative movement is finally acting on what we’ve been preaching for 30 years,” I doubt that conservative women would now be so vocal. It was the the angry reaction of the feminist movement and the media that attacked Palin,  her family and her education. Suddenly liberals questioned if a woman could work and raise a large family. Her state education was ridiculed and her middle class existence was mocked. Those were the strengths that Palin represented. She was conservative and lived a very different lifestyle from the career politicians and bi-coastal elites, who are constantly telling us how to live.

By mocking Palin and what she represented, the media and feminists were collectively slapping the faces of every conservative woman in the country. This outrage is what motivated the  conservative women’s movement to come together, and what I’ve been writing about for over a year now.

This anger motivated countless numbers of bloggers. My friend, Tabitha Hale,  started her blog directly because of Palin. It led Teri Christoph to start Smart Girl Politics. It motivated a number of women who are now running for office.

Palin wasn’t the only factor though. Conservative women, just like conservative men, are angry at the government and our free-spending Congress. Women are just as involved as men in the Tea Party. The policies and activities of the Bush Administration and now the liberals in power are motivating men and women alike to stand up. Perhaps it’s a combination of our “traditional values” and anger that have caused women to be visible.

My dad told me this week, “I’m just as conservative as your mom, but I don’t have time to go to Tea Parties.” Ironically, the traditional values and roles that conservatives have long defended are what free women up to be active in the Tea Party movement. If Congressman Blackburn noticed that Tea Parties are largely female, it’s because there are more housewives on the right. My mom has always been a conservative activist because she had the time. If women control most of the purchasing power in this country, is it surprising that we’re actively protesting the wasteful actions of our government? Tea Parties are a reflection of the masses of Americans waking up to what Congress is doing, not a sudden pink-wash of the right.

Kleinheider, and others like him, should try to do a little research.  Again, this movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. My advice to reporters and academics would be to widen your angle beyond Palin, Bachmann and Blackburn. Palin was the catalyst and deserves to be analyze.  It is shortsighted to say that the conservative movement suddenly turned pink. You’re just now noticing us.

Much of the fault lies with academics. As Ronnee Schreiber notes in her book, Righting Feminism, hardly any academic study has been conducted on conservative women…ever. There was a small amount of research done after the failure of the ERA, but they assauged their failure by concluding conservative women are no different than conservative men. Since the 1980s, they’ve assumed that conservative women view politics indentically to men. Since we’re barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, we vote as our husbands and fathers do. They fail to see that conservative women are independently conservative because that’s the political movement they agree with. Since liberal feminists created the field of gender studies and created cushy jobs for themselves, it makes sense that they wouldn’t research areas that could potentially harm the movement and their sources of income.

To be concluded in Part 2.

It’s a good sign when you scare the European establishment.

I’ve been mocked and derided for writing about the emerging force of women on the right. Well, the Guardian has a story today on Rep. Michele Bachmann. Hmm…maybe I’m not so far off. The Guardian includes the typical drivel about conservatives (nutjobs, far right extremists, possibly dangerous, angry, blah, blah, blah), but the article has some interesting points.

“Politics on the right used to be a parlour game played by old, white men,” said Bowler. Palin changed that and Bachmann has followed. They have replaced the dulcet tones of grey-haired Washington senators with Midwestern vowels and Alaskan twangs. They have risen swiftly through careers forged a long way from Washington, wearing their outsider label as a badge of pride. They have given conservatism the look of a middle-American suburban soccer mom with first-hand experience of raising a family in tough times.

I would argue that Bachmann was first (elected in 2006), but Palin was thrust into the spectacle of American media  and became a well-known figure far faster than Bachmann. However, I agree with the sentiment in the quote. Bachmann and Palin fairly represent the women engaged in Tea Parties. These aren’t your rich, affluent Federation of Republican Women types but grassroots activists.

As the article notes, there are comparisons between them. I’ve met both, and they’re both very nice, genuine women. I think they have differing roles and would agree that Bachmann’s political career probably has a longer lifespan. That’s not to say that Palin doesn’t have a bright future, but I hope she stays more movement focused.

I can only echo Michelle Malkin’s sentiments:

Yes, we’re “extreme.”

No apologies here for being extremely outraged at Washington’s ongoing generational theft, extremely mortified at our imperiled national security, extremely aggravated at the globe-trotting groveler-in-chief, and extremely disgusted with business-as-usual cronyism, pay-for-play thuggery in the Obama White House.

This is no time for mealy-mouthed moderation.

The only thing kowtowing will get you is rug burn.

Other women that should scare the Guardian are Virginia Foxx, Jean Schmidt and Tennessee’s own Marsha Blackburn.