Clara Bingham is the co-author of Class Action: The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law and author of Women on the Hill: Challenging the Culture of Congress. A former Newsweek correspondent who covered the first Bush White House, Bingham has also written for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Washington Monthly, and Talk.

A new kind of female candidate emerged this week: rich, self-made and Republican. Clara Bingham looks at women in politics, then and now.

Even before the explosion in West Virginia that killed 25 of his company's employees, Don Blankenship was a Hollywood-caliber villain. Clara Bingham on a coal executive with a seeming disregard for worker safety.

Once part of the most powerful couples in Washington, Elizabeth Dole is fighting for her political future in a dirty race that has left her appearing unfair and unscrupulous.