Strategist on lack of women in GOP leadership: 'This is just dumb'

>>> there are calls for john boehner to name women to the two committee chair postses in the new congress. that's because the other 19 committee chair slots were as you can see here all filled by men. it's been a hot topic among republican women on capitol hill .

>> i wish we weren't having to address that issue. i would like to have thought that we could have had women chair men, but the fact that this is the kind of the way it has turned out, we have to continue to highlight the qualified women that are in our conference.

>> let's bring in michael steele and kiki mcclain. good morning to both of you. the current congress has 24 republican women , the new congress will have 19. and then all the committee chair positions as we said have gone to men. michael , the optics are not good.

>> the optics stink. and you'd think given what we went through with women , about women , particularly with the gop , that this would have been raised within the leadership.

>> mitt romney lost the women 's vote by 11 points.

>> having said that, a lot of the mind set just to give you back drop on this in the gop is we don't do sort of fill in the blank here just because we have a woman, put a woman this lays. it's very much senior based. it's very much time tenured and all of that. but there are senior members at the caucus who are female who can advance i think legitimately without question about their preparedness or readiness to do the job. this is an optic issue, but easily resolved. figure those last two spots with capable women and have the noise go away.

>> with a republicans are saying is that three women were named to leadership positions in the republican conference including washington's kathy mcmorris rogers who will become the fourth highest ranking member in the house. let me lay for you what tom davis said last night on hardball.

>> only really had one woman this contention and that was candace miller. and i've been through these things. they're knife fights inside. but mcmorris rogers beat a very able man for leadership. so when the caucus was allowed to speak, they selected a woman. did you do buy that argument?

>> kind of like saying i have a friend who is a girl. look, good for her because she did run a real race from what i understand and good for the caucus for supporting that, but this is kind of like when you have to tell your son to say thank you as opposed to knowing to do it on their own. owe ought to know better and they ought to be proud of the women in their caucus and be willing to promote them. so the opticses stink, but they reflect what's really going on in that caucus and it will be a challenge. and you can say just name two and that will feel better and that will make it easier for michael and tom davis who are good guys to get through an interview. but it doesn't really reflect what's going on in that party and the reality is to michael 's point you have a seniority issue and you're going to have a lot of obstacles and barriers to new young talent coming up and they have new young women talent and they ought to promote them.

>> this is what bonnie goldstein wrote about those two positions. the only two chair than ships left to assign are the politically thankless house ethics committee chair and the administratively unrewarding hoist administration committee gavel. is she right about that, michael ?

>> yes.

>> and do they need to do that?

>> yes and yes. and this is again one of those situations where instead of leading by example, using the strength of our bench that we do have those women that kiki referenced, we didn't. now even if you do make the two appointments, you'll put them in lesser positions. if furthers the negative their difference that has continued about the gop . look, there are two realities here. one easy, one hard. the easy stuff is to do the obvious and to get engaged and put the leadership out there. the hard is having the lil to do it. actually wanting to do it. and i think we demonstrate over and over again that we just are not willing to do it. p and that has to change.

>> one more thing i want to point out. after six years you're automatically gone from the chairmanship. so they made an exception in the case of paul ryan , but not the one woman who chaired a committee.

>> this is just dumb. it speaks to their judgment and it speaks to what michael said, which is where their real heart is. it's funny, the ethics committee and administration committee are really important committees. but it is kind of easy to characterize it as saying they want one to be a mom and the other to be the house keeper . it's sort of speaks to the issue -- by the way, now you're going to do exactly what michael says you don't want to to. you didn't put a woman in a role just because she's a woman so you can check the box. there are qualified women who ought to have those roles based on their capacity and talent.

>> thank you both very much.