Does Every Woman Really Count?

Every Woman Counts is a campaign sponsored by the Lifetime Network that is supposedly geared toward increasing the participation of women in the political process, encouraging more women to vote and to increase the national spotlight on issues that are important to women.

I'm certainly all for any organized effort to get women's voices heard above the din of political shouting, but I'm not sure the recent Lifetime Every Woman Counts poll is really getting us down that road.

Recent questions included:

1. Which candidate would you rather receive a gift from?

2. Which candidate would you be most comfortable leaving your children with?

3. Which candidate would you most like to have dinner with over the holiday season?

What the ... ???

If Lifetime was really committed to making sure that every woman's vote counts, why are they spending money to have a poll taken on these silly questions? And publicizing them doesn't really give a lot of street cred to its stated efforts to highlight priorities of women voters and building a stronger presence in highlighting where the candidates stand.

What do questions like this add to the "political dialogue" other than making politicians think that we care more about popularity contests than health care or the environment?

Any effort to energize women to take more ownership of their political voices is fantastic in my opinion. So why cheapen the effort by doing a poll that insinuates we're more concerned about whether Hillary would be a thoughtful gift-giver or whether Rudy would be a good baby-sitter?

If we really want to count and be counted, let's not provide any more ammunition for the politicians to think that we're not serious voters.

You can read more of Joanne's political punditry at PunditMom and PunditMom's Spin Cycle.