I like strong women.

I like strong women who speak their minds. (I’m married to one of them.) And I’ve worked with and around many in politics, including Ann Richards , Laura Bush and Sarah Palin.

No matter your gender or politics, you have to hand it to her: Palin is fearless. “You don't want to mess with moms who are rising up,” the Wasilla warrior said last week. “If you thought pit bulls were tough, you don't want to mess with mama grizzlies.” The Democratic Governors Association immediately took the bait.

Whether you agree with them or not, it’s the women of the GOP—like Sarah Palin, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer—who are tough enough to say exactly what they think.

From the group’s May 22nd fundraising email:

“Only Sarah Palin would think an army of “mama grizzlies” is a good idea. She is building one—made of right-wing governors.

“Palin is on an endorsement spree—in just this past week she's thrown her fundraising power and media savvy behind far-right candidates for governor in South Carolina and New Mexico with more that are sure to come.

“Why? Because Sarah Palin has plans...Help stop Palin's plan to create an army of right-wing governors before it is too late.”

Curious, isn’t it? For a woman described as “ someone with a pretty face who lacks substance ,” Palin sure gets flattered with obsessive attention by her opponents and the media.

With the growing disconnect between the political class (dancing the night away at a State Dinner on the South Lawn beneath baubles and butterflies and yukking it up at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner) and mainstream America (working hard to feed their families with 9.9 percent unemployment looming overhead and watching while the nation’s greatest environmental crisis unfolds), voters have lost patience.

Agree with them or not, it’s the women of the GOP—like Sarah Palin, Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) and Gov. Jan Brewer (AZ)—who are tough enough to say exactly what they think. And their words are resonating with an increasingly vocal electoral bloc.

Lori Ziganto writes on NewsReal , the team blog of the David Horowitz Freedom Center:

“True feminists are women like Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. They are the new faces of feminism...We’ve had it, you see. We are angry... We are tired of women being painted as perpetual victims by the left, in need of Big Daddy Government to save us. We are tired of working so hard to raise our families and having the government take more and more away...We are angry that our children’s futures are being squandered and we are fearful that they will never know the country we knew and love. We are angry that we are losing our freedom. That old phrase ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?’ Say hello to the scorned (I’m waving at you right now).”

Women accounted for 54 percent of voters in the 2008 elections. Yet only six women currently serve as governors, with 17 in the U.S. Senate, and 76 in the House.

That underrepresentation may be about to change with a record number of women—and Republican women—running.