Are Republicans using sex appeal to drive more voters to the polls? Betsy Reed, The Nation‘s executive editor, joins Esquire‘s Tom Junod to debate the appeal of conservative female candidates like Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell and Michele Bachmann. 

Drawing on her recent Nation article, "Sex and the GOP," Reed argues that, despite all the feminist rhetoric, these candidates actually appeal more to men, and that women are traditionally more liberal in their sensibilities than these far-right Mama Grizzlies. "All the polling shows that they actually appeal to men," she says, "which is the traditional base of the Republican party."

But if conserva-femmes appeal to men, then where are all the women—what is keeping women from actually getting out to vote?

—Braden Goyette