"I Am Woman, Hear Me Whimper"

The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, is a proud woman and proud feminist. Or at least she wants us to think so, because Tuesday we read in Politico

Speaking during POLITICO's Women Rule Summit, McDaniel said the party needs to look into why many white suburban female voters — a traditionally solidly Republican group — switched to Democratic candidates during the midterms.

"Of course, we have to look at why we’re losing with women," McDaniel said. "I’m a woman. I want to know that, too. I don’t think we’re a monolithic group. I don’t like that"....

Describing her own experience leading up to serving as the second female chair in the history of the Republican National Committee, McDaniel said she often felt excluded from discussions with donors because of her gender. She said when she was chair of the Michigan GOP, she was called a kindergartner and laughed out of talks with potential donors. But "you don’t give up, and I got money from that person," she said....

McDaniel herself felt similar hesitancy when tapped by Reince Priebus to run for party chairwoman, but she ran and became one of the most successful fundraisers in the party's history.

“I’m the classic 60 percent qualified apply for the job," she said. "I did what the men did.”

Well, not exactly.  She did as men would not do. Fourteen months after Ronna accep;ted the job as party chairman, The New York Times' Jeremy Peters reported in January that she

tried to leave little doubt about where her loyalty lies. She even stopped using her full name — Ronna Romney McDaniel — professionally after the president joked with her and her husband about dropping her given surname.

“You know the job you’re signing up for,” she said in an interview one recent morning at a diner near her home, referring obliquely to the fact that committee leaders typically have to toe the president’s line when their party holds the White House.

And she has indeed been highly deferential. She fell in line after Mr. Trump insisted last month that the Republican National Committee put resources back into the Senate race in Alabama to aid Roy S. Moore, who had been accused of preying on girls as young as 14.

Alabama rejected Mr. Moore and elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in a generation. But even now, Ms. McDaniel will not say whether she believes the committee’s move was a mistake. “I understand why the president did what he did,” she said. “He wants to keep that majority.”

Of course she would not say whether throwing a lot of money into electing a Republican in Alabama, where Republicans almost never lose, was a mistake. We should have expected no less, or perhaps no more, from a woman who changed her identity because Big Daddy Trump asked.

Upon getting married, a woman obviously faces a challenge a man doesn't. She can change her maiden name to her husband's surname, retain her birth name, or opt for a combination, using both last names, with or without a hyphen.

After marrying Mitt Romney's older brother, Ronna faced that challenge. She decided, out of familial pride or ambition, to retain the Romney name while assuming the name "McDaniel," thereby assuring the family that once prided itself on "family values" that, yes, she must be a traditional woman because got married.

But then the libertine Donald J. Trump, conqueror of Playboy models, pornographic actresses, fashion models, and all manner of women in the fast lane, took over that Party. And Ronna Romney McDaniel became "Ronna McDaniel" because Donald Trump wanted to stick it to Mitt Romney, and doing it to his niece seemed a fine way. "Well, first of all, I look atDonald Trump as a champion of women" sealed the deal. Take that, Mitt.

As with any woman, Ronna Romney McDaniel can identify in any manner she wishes and if it is as "Ronna McDaniel," best wishes.  However, if she had a little backbone, she would own it. "I did what the men did" is a little rich.

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