Women in Virginia politics

Here Shaula has figured that there were not too many women in Virginia elected to statewide office or as Congresspersons before quite recently.

The first woman running for anything that I recall was Edythe Harrison, who got a shade less than 30% of the vote against Sen. Warner in 1984, which made me think at the time that the Virginia Democrats must be crazy. In fact, I still don't understand it, I've never read and no one has ever explained to me why there was no better candidate to be found that year. It is one of those strange things that you remember but just don't make any sense, sort of like the fact that the Florida Marlins have ever won the World Series.