Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

Feb 2012 protesters in Dallas. Rex C. Curry/AP/FileThe number of high-ranking resignations at Susan G. Komen for the Cure has increased to at least five this week. Three officials has resigned from Komen’s Dallas headquarters, accompanied by CEOs of affiliate groups in Oregon and now New York City. The chairman of the foundation Howard University surgeon LaSalle D. Leffall Jr. has stepped down but remains on the Board.

The New York chief executive, Dara Richardson-Heron, declined to comment Wednesday. In a statement on the affiliate’s Web site, she said the decision was not “easy,” but the right one. Her counterpart in Oregon, Christine McDonald, said last month that she was stepping down. McDonald, who did not return phone calls Wednesday, said “deep frustration about the distraction” caused by the Komen headquarters’ actions was a factor, a statement on the affiliate’s Web site said.

New York is the biggest affiliate fund-raiser, raising about $12.7 million in cash and in-kind donations in the 2011 fiscal year. New York was always opposed to the decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood.

In Dallas, Komen is losing Katrina McGhee, the EVP and CMO, leaving May 4; Nancy Macgregor, vp of global networks is leaving in June; and Joanna Newcomb, a director for affiliate strategy and planning who is gone. McGhee oversees more than 200 corporate partnerships, 140 race events and more than $350 million in annual revenue at Komen.

Not only is Komen looking at the departures of key executives, but the breast cancer charity’s ability to fundraise is also dubious. Throughout the organization, staff members are being asked to review budgets, continues WaPo.

At Komen’s recent affiliate leadership meeting in Dallas, there was a renewed call for the organization to become more horizontal, rather than receiving top-down directives from Dallas. The NYTimes wrote earlier this week that the calls for founder Nancy G. Brinker to resign were escalating.

War on Women

Minutes ago in PA’s April 28 group planning a United Against the War on Women Rally in Harrisburg, Anne wrote “I think we need a personhood movement for women, too. Women aren’t incubators.” Jason Stanford asks the same question in his Huff Po piece.

Maybe what women need is a personhood movement that piggybacks on the Republican dream to enfranchise zygotes with civil rights. It’s time for Republicans to recognize that women should have at least as much power in their lives as they imagine a fertilized egg has.

FIFA, the Olympics, and Muslim Female Athletes Council on Foreign Relations

Pope Benedict is in Mexico, as former victims and authors staged news conferences to call attention to the sex abuse cases surrounding disgraced Rev. Marciel Degollado, the Mexican priest who founded the Legionaries of Christ. Benedict was the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office investigating the allegations. The NYTimes writes that Rev. Alberto Athié Gallo, a co-author of a new book, “The Will Not To Know” was among the voices speaking out about the case.

More DFR

President Obama greets women onstage in November 2009. (Credit: AP/Mel Evans)That subset of female voters that is unmarried women emerges as the single most important group that could decide the November elections, writes Salon. In a new report from pollster Celinda Lake and the Voter Participation Center, it’s estimated that 55 million unmarried women will be eligible to vote in November, an increase of 19 percent since 2000.

When these women do vote, it’s overwhelmingly Democratic. Reality is, though, that currently one-third of these women aren’t registered to vote, compared to a quarter of married women.

According to a poll Gardner’s group conducted with Democracy Corps and released in mid-February, Mitt Romney’s favorability numbers with unmarried women — defined as women who are divorced, separated, widowed or never been married — have dropped from 37 percent in November 2011 to 30 percent in February 2012. Meanwhile, in the same time frame, President Obama’s numbers have jumped from 54 percent in November to 65 percent in February.

Karl Lagerfeld Latest Snit

In all the chaos of the war on women and Anne acting as a press liaison for the April 28th march in Harrisburg, we failed to post Newsbeast writer Robin Givhan’s February 6 issue essay in which she called the famed designer “overrated”.

Givhan predicted her future, booted from her usual front row seat at the Chanel show. The imperial Lagerfeld claimed at a press conference Friday that he’s sorry editor Tina Brown is “going down” with a “shitty little paper”.

For a man who dished out criticism lavishly, the Chanel designer tolerates none from others. Anne has written extensively about Lagerfeld — and not kindly.