GOP Women Serve Grit, Not Tea : They’re not in the spotlight for decoration; they’re tough and on the attack to reverse the macho party’s decline.

Men used to like the Republican Party more than women did. The macho party espoused rugged individualism and was always ready for a fight with the bad guys (communists, remember them?). Twice the Republicans chose the Marlboro Man in a suit, Ronald Reagan, to be President. Mostly the gender gap worked to the detriment of the Democrats, who could never get enough women to vote for them to overcome the number of men voting for the Republicans. After the 1984 election, I called a Democratic friend in Alabama to commiserate. As we pored over polls showing that only one in 10 white males had voted for Walter Mondale, my friend drawled, “Why, Elaine, I’m beginning to have to doubt my masculinity.”

So it was a little bit strange to find myself in the middle of the Bush-Quayle media room the other morning as a bevy of well-dressed ladies in pearls (who could just as easily pass for ladies who lunch) pulled together a counterattack against Bill Clinton’s preemptive television ads on taxes. At the center of this whirlwind were Mary Matalin, Leslie Goodman, Katherine Murray and Chris Seeger. An older man (he’s usually seen in a senior advisory role, but he looked so ineffective that, out of courtesy, I won’t name him) meandered in from time to time and whispered with Matalin. But basically the decisions and the energy came from the women. During one of the lulls in the activity I asked the assembled women why the Republican attack team was all female. “Hormones,” was the immediate response, and then they were back to work.

On Monday night, the convention spotlight was on Condolezza Rice, a foreign policy expert who served Presidents Reagan and Bush on the staff of the National Security Council. Rice, who is black, is probably best known by the general public for not being allowed into a summit meeting between Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev by the Secret Service, who could not believe that she belonged in the room; she did. Tonight, in an unprecedented move, both of the candidates’ wives, Barbara Bush and Marilyn Quayle, will address the convention. Mrs. Bush is more popular and more likable than her husband; Mrs. Quayle is widely reputed to be smarter than her husband. On Wednesday night, another Republican woman, Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, will nominate George Bush.

The fact is, you can’t turn around at this convention without hearing about yet another prominent Republican woman. Is this all a clever public relations plot to try to deflect attention from the fact that the Republican platform has a position on abortion that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to women? Undoubtedly, some of the hype is just that--hype. (The Washington Post called the colorful and combative Matalin, who is deputy manager of the Bush-Quayle campaign, and her equally combative colleague, press secretary Torrie Clark, the Thelma and Louise of the GOP.)

By emphasizing the array of different types of women who are important to the Republican Party, the Bush team clearly hopes to indicate that the GOP really is a “big tent” into which all are welcome. Women who are strongly pro-life have nowhere to go but to the GOP, and women who are strongly pro-choice will go to the Democrats; thus the fight is, as always, for the great big middle.

But there’s another explanation for the prominence of women at this convention. The men of the macho party are exhausted and confused. They have, starting with the President himself, managed to get themselves (and the country) into big trouble. For much of the summer, the men of the Bush campaign seem to have been Dukakisized, fumbling while Clinton & Co. landed punch after punch. It was during this time that the women, led by Matalin and Clarke and joined later by Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Quayle, began to fight back. Matalin was somewhat too aggressive and got into trouble over one of her hard-hitting attacks, but she seems to have finally woke up the men.

If they were to make a Western movie about the GOP circa 1992, it would feature an attack on the homestead that left the men wounded and in danger of dying. It would end with the women hitching up their skirts, taking the men’s weapons and saving the day. At least that’s what the women of the macho party hope to do.