WINDY: Women's groups lost the BC battle, won the stimulus war

My latest feature story is about the increasing political power of national feminist lobby/advocacy groups and their role in shaping the economic stimulus package, which passed the House yesterday.

Obama yanked the rug out from under Planned Parenthood and other groups that advocated strongly for the Medicaid expansion for birth control. That was a major dis to a key ally, and a pointless political gesture on Obama part, seeing as zero House Republicans voted for the stimulus package anyway.

But, as I report in my story, the stimulus package has billions of dollars in social spending, pink collar job creation, health care, and childcare provisions that feminist groups lobbied hard for.