Warren Takes Command--and a Key Pioneer

 NYT just posted a piece on the surge this year of women (mainly Democrats) running for office.   And at TPM, their poll tracker today finds Eliz Warren with at least a 5% lead in Massachusetts, and if anything she has been widening.

So you might want to check out my recent piece  at The Nation on the notorious 1950 contest for the U.S. Senate in California between two up-and-coming members of Congress:  the young Richard Nixon and the former actress/activist Helen Gahagan Douglas.

 She was one of the first women to even try for a Senate seat--and Nixon, of course,  Red-baited her mercilessly, even saying she was "pink right down to her underwear."  It's the subject of my Random House book, Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady (a New York Times Notable Book), just out this past summer in new print and ebook editions.