"Pink Right Down to Her Underwear"

"Twenty years after women had been allowed to vote in all 50 states, her path from obscure celebrity housewife to political powerhouse in two short years charted new territory for herself and her gender. She was elected congresswoman from the 14th District, an inner-city borough that stretched from Sunset Boulevard to South Los Angeles. In 1945, she entered Congress as one of only nine women in an austere body in which most female members were congressional widows merely holding their husbands' seats while awaiting a suitable male replacement. She was elected to three terms, and her trajectory seemed unstoppable. Until Richard Nixon."

Sally Denton in the Los Angeles Times recalls the 1950 California Senate campaign.