cory gardner, joni ernst, monica webbe and tom cotton will fly to tampa. the fund-raising may also benefit the winner of the august 26 republican primary in alaska. this week was not so bright when it comes to jeb bush s iowa prospects. he was tied with christie for the highest negative rating of any republican tested in a new quinnipiac poll. his positive rating was even lower than christie s and he fared the worst against hillary clinton, trailing her by double digits. it s pretty clear, though, that jeb has a tough time. speaking of florida republicans, let s move to marco rubio. it s pretty clear these days that he s putting together the issues section of his presidential website. i d argue no potential 2016er has been more methodical about delivering policy speeches than rubio. started in january, february and march. rubio gave six big foreign policy speeches. in may he laid out his social security plan. this week his focus was economic policy and his pitch wednesday.
i wonder nationally. we talk about the gender gap and marriage gap all the time and single winning gap by women 30, 40 points. is there a concerted effort right now on the part of the republican party a real effort? i know they talk about it but is there a real effort there to recruit more female candidates? i think in 2010 there certainly was and that s when you saw some of these female governors. martinez is a great example. there was a really aggressive effort to get a local d.a. or prosecutor to run for governor of new mexico. i think there is this year too. if you look at the senate, some of the women candidates in oregon, monica webbe, the national party really want her to be the nominee. so yes, i think there is an effort and what you see is it s actually striking to me, steve, because conservatism generally has looked toward identity of politics with revulsion. that s what they do, that s what liberals do.