NEANDERTHALIER THAN THOU?

You've probably seen this story:

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) told colleagues on the House floor on Tuesday that young boys and girls should take classes on traditional gender roles in a marriage because there are some things fathers do "maybe a little bit better" than mothers.

"You know, maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what's important," Gingrey said in a speech supporting the Defense of Marriage Act. "This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage." ...

This comes just after a fellow Georgia Republican, Paul Broun, decided to oppose a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks because it wasn't restrictive enough -- a decision that may be helping Broun in the world of Georgia Republican politics:

Paul Broun just might have secured the Georgia Right to Life endorsement in the U.S. Senate race. He did it with typical Broun flair -- crossing the GOP leadership and national pro-life organizations in favor of an absolutist stance.

Broun voted against a "fetal pain" abortion bill backed by House Republicans that would ban abortions after a fetus is 20 weeks old.... He and Georgia Right to Life blanched when House Republican leaders inserted exceptions for rape and incest into the bill....

Phil Gingrey, who also wants the GOP Senate nomination in Georgia, voted for the abortion bill -- he didn't agree with Broun that the bill is too permissive.

I guess that leaves Gingrey vulnerable in the Georgia GOP. Ed Kilgore thinks Gingrey's paean to traditional gender roles may have been a sop to Georgia GOP extremists who might think he's too wobbly now:

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but on the same day that he risked the opprobrium of GRTL by voting for an unconstitutional abortion ban that didn’t go far enough, Phil Gingrey made a speech on the House floor suggesting that schools hold classes instructing kids on "traditional gender roles."

That's how Republicans roll down in Georgia.

I think Gingrey should have tried to out-crazy Broun (and their other potential challengers). And I know just the issue: he should have called for the repeal of the 19th Amendment.

I mean, really, if he's going to say that boys and girls should be taught traditional gender roles from a young age, why not go all the way and say it was a mistake to allow women to vote? That great constitutional scholar Ann Coulter favors repeal ("If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president"), as do such conservatives as National Review's Michael Walsh ("let's just observe that without it Barack Obama could never have become president. Time for the ladies to take one for the team"), Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, and Vox Day.

The Georgia GOP Senate primary is likely to have a crowded field. Maybe ex-Susan Komen executive Karen Handel can up the ante by calling for a ban on contraception. Maybe Tom Price, who's expressed concern that legislators who endorse "some homosexual agenda item" often fail to "take into account the tremendous medical health impact and economic impact that promoting such a lifestyle will result in," could call for the death penalty for all gay people.

Come on, folks! This is what your primary electorate wants! Go for it!