Sandra Fluke says 'maybe someday I will' run for office

Sandra Fluke said this week that in the aftermath of a controversy that brought her into a national spotlight, American women are urging her to run for office--and she is not ruling it out.

“Numerous American women have actually written to me in the last few weeks saying that I should run for office, and maybe someday I will," Fluke said Tuesday at a Capitol Hill forum on “Opportunities and Challenges for a New Generation of Women."

Fluke added that "for now, I actually have to finish law school."

Fluke became the focus of a controversy over the White House's contraception coverage mandate last month, first due to her testimony--heavily promoted by Democrats--on the value of easy access to contraceptive care, and then because conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh targeted her for her policy position. Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute," characterizing her position as wanting "to be paid to have sex."

Limbaugh later apologized for the remarks, saying he went too far, but Democrats seized on the comment as characteristic of the Republican position.

"Some conservative commentators thought that women would be silenced by sexist rhetoric and by these types of accusations," Fluke said at the forum. "And I have to be honest that for a brief moment, I worried that that could potentially be successful, that young girls would see how I was treated in the media and conclude that they should just keep their mouths firmly shut and stay out of the way, lest that happen to them. But women of all ages proved me wrong."

At the forum, hosted by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Fluke called for more women in public office who would be "focused on representing how policies will affect all" women.

"And this doesn't mean that it should be a political litmus test, that they need to be Democratic women or they need to be Republican women. But there should be a litmus test that they be pro-women," she said. She defined "pro-women" in her speech within the context of "family planning" policies, including promoting more access to birth control.

Fluke credited Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) as political role models for her generation.

Her comments were first reported by Daily Caller.

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