The New Face of Politics

Republican state senate candidate Wendy Rogers strode confidently up the front walk of a suburban tract house in Tempe, Arizona, and rapped on the door. She scanned a printout of registered voters in her district, found the name of the homeowner, and repeated it under her breath. Hearing footsteps inside, Rogers, her brunette bob held in place by a strong blast of hairspray, adjusted her sky-blue polo shirt and smoothed her khaki shorts. Even before the door swung open, she started her spiel.

"Hi, Mr. Smith, I'm Wendy Rogers and I'm running for the state legislature. I'm a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel pilot, served 20 years in the military, and for the past 13 years have been a small business owner in our district. I'd be honored to have you sign my nominating petition."

It's a late June day in the Southwest, and at 9:30 in the morning it's already 100 degrees. But Rogers, 56, is as cool and focused as she was flying her C-141B Starlifter filled with Marines over Okinawa in 1985. With an incumbent as her opponent, she decided early that getting to know voters — and getting voters to know her — should be her first priority. Since July of 2009 she's been hitting the streets on her 20-year-old mountain bike, a handmade "Rogers For Senate" sign slung over the rear tire, searching for votes one door at a time. Her motive? "When I see people in the legislature who aren't balancing the budget and don't have a plan for doing so, I can't just sit on the sidelines," she says. To date, Rogers has visited 10,000 households.

And she's not alone. As the fall elections approach, women like Rogers, mentored by more than 50 different partisan and nonpartisan groups, are fanning out across the country, turning the passion for public service they've picked up as business leaders, stay-at-home moms, and members of the military into full-blown political activism. Ninety years after women won the right to vote, they're helping to correct a shocking inequity. High-profile female politicians such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin notwithstanding, the number of women in elected office in the United States is disproportionately low. When ranked among the world's democracies, the U.S. is 73rd out of 186 countries in electing females to public office, worse than Turkmenistan but slightly better than the tiny republic of San Marino.

One key force in the movement to get women into office is the nonpartisan 2012 Project, which specifically targets women age 45 and up. "Midlife women make strong candidates, and they're at a point in life when they can take on the task," says 2012 Project head Mary Hughes. "They are about to have fewer family responsibilities, are more likely to be financially stable, and have deep roots in the community."

For 25 years Hughes has worked on campaigns to elect women. Women currently hold about a quarter of all elected offices in this country and 17 percent of the seats in Congress, but that figure is less impressive, she says, when you consider that women make up about 51 percent of the American population. "We never say 83 percent of Congress is male. We say we're up to 17 percent," says Hughes. "We are penalized for our optimism."