Reporting from Northern Virginia, New York Times Michael Tackett’s full-page, 1,700-word story led Tuesday’s National section: “Outraged and Inspired, Women Join the Political Fray.” The online headline got more specifically partisan: “Women Line Up to Run for Office, Harnessing Their Outrage at Trump.” It’s the latest in a pattern of Times pieces trying to drum up (Democratic) women candidates and votes to dent or overturn Republican congressional majorities and further hurt President Trump.
A photo caption normalized the left-wing protest march in January (“The Women’s March in Washington, held the day after President Trump’s inauguration, was a galvanizing event for many women”) while the entire top of the print page was devoted to a personable photo of Wendy Gooditis, heroine for having defeated a Republican candidate for....the Virginia House of Delegates? Is this story really worth top billing:
For Wendy Gooditis, a Northern Virginia real estate agent, the crystallizing moment in her decision to run for office was when she heard her state delegate suggest that he had fought gerrymandering in Virginia when his record said otherwise.
For Mai-Khanh Tran, a pediatrician in Southern California, it was the day after the presidential election in 2016 and she looked into the eyes of a young patient with a brain tumor whose family had only recently obtained health insurance.
For Andrea Ramsey, the president of a nonprofit children’s health clinic in Kansas City, Kan., it was in May when her local congressman voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
None of the women had seriously contemplated entering politics before. They had no money or organization. But they were dismayed with the direction of the country, they said, starting with the election of President Trump, and finally decided to act.
They have been joined by hundreds of other women across the nation, with the number seeking elective office rising at every level, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. They were angered by Mr. Trump’s election and energized by the Women’s March in Washington the day after his inauguration, and are now even more driven to get involved after the flood of sexual harassment allegations against powerful men.
Some pro-Democrat cheerleading for a House takeover:
Democrats are the overwhelming beneficiaries of the surge in women’s activism, and even hope it could lead to retaking the House if candidates like Ms. Tran and Ms. Ramsey prevail over incumbent Republicans.
Their optimism will be tested in primaries early next year and throughout the summer, but the early signs indicate that female candidates are raising significant sums and building strong organizations.
....
She said it began with the Women’s March, where the scale of the movement showed great potential for continued engagement. “Then the year is ending on this note of women who are stepping forward, finding their voices, in many ways doing the classic ‘we are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it any more.’ It’s sort of a primal scream.”
....
Mr. Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be a major-party candidate for president, jolted women to become more active.
“It was Donald Trump and the way that he sort of embraced masculinity, but even more specifically, misogyny, in his rhetoric and behavior,” said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics. “To make a statement against that and the policies he espoused sort of pushed them over the edge to not just think about running, but to put their names out there.”
Note the story featured a state-level candidate, not a national-level candidate, as it's above-the-fold photo. There were other vague hints that the female-candidate boomlet isn’t as overwhelming as implied.
The number of male candidates has also increased, she said, so the proportion of female candidates has not ballooned. But many of those women are running as challengers, meaning that if they win, they would substantially alter the balance of power in statehouses and Congress.
And the ballyhooed movement may have limited real-world results:
Many of the women are decided long shots, challenging Republicans in some cases where no Democrat has run in a decade.
....
It did not take Ms. Gooditis long to find her path. She was distraught about Mr. Trump’s election, and could not bring herself to watch the inauguration. She attended the Women’s March and a week later started an Indivisible group.
After hearing Mr. Minchew imply at a town hall meeting that he opposed gerrymandering, she said, she later told a local gathering of Democrats, “Somebody has to run against this guy.” Then, she added, her neighbor Kathy Smart said, “You run, Wendy.”
Sex generalizations remain acceptable in The Times as long as they flatter women (who also get to display liberal stereotypes like overwrought emotional reactions to the election of Republicans:
Ms. Tran, who was born in Vietnam and came to the United States when she was 9, attended Harvard, where she worked as a janitor to help pay for school before eventually entering the Dartmouth-Brown Program in Medicine.
On the day after the election, Ms. Tran, a pediatrician for 25 years, said she did not feel like going to her medical office. “But I did what most women do: get up, take care of things and take care of people,” she said.
Because no man would ever think of doing anything like that.
Tran the pediatrician is pro-abortion, which elicited no raised eyebrow from the pro-choice paper:
Ms. Tran is one of five Democratic challengers so far to Representative Ed Royce of California, but the only woman. “Women are ready to be at the table now on issues that are so current and vital to women now,” she said. “Our health care, our reproductive rights, also our safety and our dignity.”
The story ended as it began, with a fixation on Trump and sexism:
While health care is a dominant issue for many of the female candidates, and was the top issue cited by voters in Virginia, according to exit polls, it is the president who may be the prime motivator.
“I just say as long as Donald Trump is in the White House, there will be oxygen in this movement,” Ms. Dunn said.
