Retiring Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison recently opined on how her party (the Republicans) really blew it with women voters:

“When we talk about women’s issues and the social issues, people have to stop acting like the woman is a throw-away here,” the Texas senator, who is retiring, said on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “We’ve got to talk to women about the issues they care about.”

[Emphasis added.] I noticed something during the campaign when certain Republican candidates discussed issues pertaining to anyone who did not fit the affluent white Christian male demographic. It seemed to me like they tended to talk about people in those groups (e.g. women, people of color, LGBT people), but they rarely if ever talked to them. I’m not just referring to the more abhorrent of the Republican field, a la Todd Akin. Even Mitt Romney had a tendency, when addressing women’s issues, to speak as though he were discussing abstract concepts, rather than deeply-held concerns that affect the lives of more than half of the people in this country.

I don’t see how the Republican party can stop being the party of old, rich, white, Christian men, and those who aspire to belong to their club, without more soul-searching and compromise than is possible. Then again, people sang dirges to the demise of the Republican Party in 2006 and 2008, and the same was said of the Democratic Party in 2004 and 2010. It is impossible to say what will happen to the two parties with which we are stuck, but it is fun to guess.

I’m just glad to see that there is at least one Republican senator – albeit a retiring one – who is getting a clue.

Photo credit: “Kay Bailey Hutchison, official photo 2” by United States Congress. (http://hutchison.senate.gov/resources/presskit.zip) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.