The Republican Party needs more women lawmakers and must do a better job of "bringing a female perspective" to the national issues, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee says.
"It is bringing the female perspective to the table because women are the majority of the voters, they are the majority of the wage earners . . . and our party has been slow to elevate women to positions of leadership and it's time for them to change that," Blackburn told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
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"It is unfortunate for the Republican Party that we only have 19 women in the House and we only have one female that holds a gavel."
Blackburn agreed with House Speaker John Boehner who said this week that Republicans must learn to be more sensitive to women.
"The speaker is right. It's not really sensitivity training, it's awareness training and it is education training to think of how you approach a female point of view and a male point of view of every issue," she said.
"It's not that dissimilar to what you have seen happen in corporation after corporation around this country. They have looked for female board members where they do targeted, focused marketing on how women react to different [issues]."
Blackburn, who, as vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce, said the GOP faces the challenge of issuing strong, clear policy messages.
"What we have seen time and again is that we don't do a thorough enough job in thinking through and working through how we message. How many times do you hear from people, well, the Republican Party just does not have a strong message?" she said.
"Everybody talks about different things. They don't focus, they don't address things the same way. What we're trying to do is get our arms around that and do a better job of messaging."
She said Democrats remain on the same talking points day in and day out.
"You give them point one, two, three, they're going to talk point one, two, three. Sometimes we'll laugh about the fact that they've all got the same word of the day or message of the day and you all hear it from them, too.
"What we're saying is look, some of our members are not maybe as thoughtful as they should be in realizing you don't categorize women's issues. Women are concerned about every issue and there is a female perspective to every issue out there. Jobs, the economy, healthcare, are the top three issues."
She believes approval ratings for Democrats are plummeting because of the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act, and its effect on Americans.
"We knew that there was no way this was workable and when you look at how they have moved forward with implementing this program, you know it really is not workable," she said.
"So what we're [doing] … is to continue to bring forward ideas that would reform the healthcare system in a free market-oriented way that would put individuals back in touch with their physicians and individuals working with those physicians managing their healthcare.
"That is what people want. They don't want the federal government making these decisions. It's not workable and it's too expensive. We can't afford it."
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