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national women's political caucus convention
Women of the Republican and Democratic parties gathered in Cincinnati July 12th to 15th at the convention of the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC). Sharing energies and skills, they envision asserting a feminist presence at the 1980 national conventions and future elections.
Bella Abzug, former chair of the President's Advisory Council for Women and one of the NWPC founders, urged the Cincinnati convention to get feminists elected as uncommitted delegates or pledged to "favorite daughters." A bloc of 500 feminist votes at the Democratic National Convention is not impossible, she said.
In the 1976 conventions that nominated Ford and Carter, there were twice as many Republican women delegates and three times as many Democratic women delegates as in 1972. The Democrats have since approved a rule giving women and men equal representation in the state delegations of the 1980 convention. Although the rule is being challenged within the party, 1,665 women delegates could be very powerful for a few days.
Women now hold only ten percent of the country's elective offices; NWPC was founded in 1971 to change that imbalance. In eight years it has grown to 40,000 members, and it contributed $350,000 to the campaigns of women candidates in 1978. Like the Republican...