Keller @ Large

Women Looking To Make A Political Impact In Mass.

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Massachusetts now has a woman to congress for the first time in 25 years. Niki Tsongas took the oath of office on Thursday, but what about the state's overall record of electing women to high political office.

You think of all the smart women coming out of our universities and our reputation as a progressive state and you wonder -- why are there so few women running for and winning the top political jobs here?

WBZ's Jon Keller spoke with a soldier in that struggle who says long overdue change might finally be at hand.

For the power-starved women of Massachusetts, Tsongas's victory was a long-awaited feast after decades of famine.

"I was thrilled because this is really breaking the glass ceiling for politics in mass," said Barbara Lee, the founder of the Lee Family Foundation -- a Cambridge group that's been trying to help get women elected here for years. "There are many, many other states that have women senators, women governors, many, many women in congress."

"Massachusetts has had an old boys network," explains Lee. "Now we're developing a new girls network, and women are becoming better and better candidates."

They've got their work cut out for them. Nine other states have female governors; we've never elected one. Barely one quarter of the state legislators are women, ranking one of the nation's most liberal states only 20th out of fifty. What gives?

"Women haven't seen enough women in these positions to know that this is a role for them," explains Lee. "But now we have Martha Coakley, we have Sheriff Andrea Cabral and Hillary Clinton running a very serious and winning campaign for the presidency."

But will female voters rally behind them? They didn't back Shannon O'Brien strongly enough to beat Mitt Romney in 2002. "Today, women are ready to vote for women," said Lee. "They know that women candidates have walked in their shoes, understand their problems, and make good public officials."

It's true that Attorney General Coakley and Suffolk County Sheriff Cabral have given hope to women that they too can win jobs never held by women before, but Lee acknowledges a lot depends on what happens with Hillary Clinton. A female president, she suggests, could open the floodgates for women in politics, even here in old-boy Massachusetts.

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