I'm on the downhill side of 50 and I was born and nominally raised a Catholic, so I can just remember when people talked quite seriously about the Catholic Vote. Heck, if you are old enough to remember the last Presidential Election you can remember some murmurings about whether Kerry would get this "block."

In 2004 we discovered there was no longer a Catholic Vote, but here in the State of Washington, with 2 US Senators and a Governor who are all Female--and Catholic Democrats too--maybe we should ask ourselves if we shouldn't be talking about the Female Vote or at least the Female Factor.

That's what I am thinking about not in the US Senate Race, but in the State Supreme Court Race between Susan Owens and Stephen Johnson. Almost all the daily newspapers in the state have endorsed Johnson over Owens. And properly so. I try to explain on my own (still unfinished) website, www.MarleneAdams.com, why the case law indicates that Susan Owens should not be retained.

But in the end will it really matter? It didn't work for Jeanette Burrage, but then she was a conservative and had a difficult reputation to overcome. Combine the old pro-incumbent flyers from the unions back in the Primary, and the Democrats who are still pitching for Owens (I just received a robocall from Gary Locke paid for by Citizens to Uphold the Constitution), with the fact that Owens is a FEMALE incumbent, and maybe everything the editorialists have written is for naught. Maybe the voter who isn't reading the newspapers, will just see this nice female, and that will be that. I hope not. I hope we females--and males--have come a lot further than that from the early 1990's when an unqualified Patty Murray was able to milk the Anita Hill Factor.