Symbolism is huge in politics.
So, even in Red State Oklahoma, you’d think Republicans would take pains to avoid designating a male-only slate of presidential electors.
Nope.
Women may be more than half the population, but there’s not a female among the Romney-Ryan team’s Electoral College representatives from the Sooner State.
The GOP electors: David Holt, Lynn Windel, Lawrence A. Williamson, Joe Peters, Mark Thomas, Jason Cowen and Duane Crumbacher.
Whatever happened to Romney’s binders?
For a party scrambling to overcome the fallout of wingnut rape rhetoric from U.S. Senate candidates Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, the decision to select an all-male Electoral College slate is more than curious – it’s downright tone deaf.
Romney, of course, is expected to carry Oklahoma big on Tuesday, but it is worth noting that a Pew Research Center survey eight days before the election found a sizeable gender gap nationally: 50% of likely women voters favored Obama, 44% Romney.
For the record, the Obama-Biden Electoral College team from Oklahoma includes four women and three men: Isabel Baker, Doug Dodd, Carl Downing, Connie Johnson, Judy Eason McIntyre, Mack Miller and Martha Skeeters.