Shipp says C. Cox, "the Democrats' great female hope," is playing a waiting game before organizing female voters to expel the Neanderthals in '06.

This week Bill Shipp writes:

Halloo, Cathy! Calling Cathy Cox! Are you still out there some place? We have barely heard a peep from you lately. Just want to make sure you're OK.

A Capitol girl can't be too careful these days. With all these macho Republicans goose-stepping around the rotunda, hardly anyone seems safe. Least of all, Cathy Cox, the Georgia secretary of state and Democratic candidate for governor.

Before Cathy dropped out of sight a month or two ago, she was everywhere. You may remember Cox starred last fall in a smash-hit series of public-service TV commercials. She warned old people to be careful of crooked money schemes. TV critics gave Cox two thumbs up for her performance. Said she ought to get an Oscar or an Emmy or whatever. Said she was a natural for the tube. Republican leaders blew up. They carped that she had no business doing those commercials. It just wasn't fair - even if a private foundation paid for them.

Then Cathy's screen went dark. At the end of December, the TV contract ran out. Except for attending an occasional awards dinner or making a luncheon speech, the Democrats' great female hope all but faded away.

Her winter replacement: The Grandest Republican Show on Earth. Gov. Sonny Perdue and his legislature took over the airwaves and the headlines.

Never have Georgians seen such a display of power - or such an avalanche of legislation intruding into their private lives. Perdue and his New Order legislature also gave big business the kind of blank checks and tax breaks the tycoons never envisioned. For the suits, working with the Georgia legislature was suddenly more fun than opening bank accounts in the Caymans or seeking new plant sites in Pakistan.

Corporate lobbyists never looked happier. But Perdue and his boys weren't satisfied with dabbling in the boardrooms. Private bedrooms and personal relationships became an inviting hunting ground.

Proposals to limit or ban abortions piled up. One such notion is on its way to becoming law. A statute to complicate and prolong painful divorce proceedings appeared ready to zip through the Grand Old General Assembly. Another plan - known as the "Mad Dads' Bill" - was hatched to ease the child-support burden on absentee fathers.

Everywhere you looked, Perdue's battalions stamped "secrecy" on their doings. Poor Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor tried valiantly to fight back, but the Republican juggernaut overran most of his positions. Taylor, a Democrat also planning to run for governor, continues to battle on, almost alone.

So where is Cathy Cox? She remains mute. She watches. She endures the insults of the occupiers. She smiles. And she waits.

For the truth is, Perdue's army may have walked into an ambush. Though the new Republican regime counts a female legislator or two among its compliant mascots, Georgia women are generally disgusted at what they have witnessed in Atlanta in the past two months. Plus, they don't like Perdue. At least, that is what Cathy Cox's forces believe. They may have closely guarded statistics to prove it.

So they've decided to stay out of sight. Cox's people probably wouldn't utter a sound right now, even if the state's legislative leaders showed up for work wearing brown shirts and jackboots - which is not out of the question, by the way.

Cox's forces know demographics are on their side. Men make most of the noise. But women control politics in Georgia. Get this: Most Georgia women vote Democratic - even if they were a deciding factor in the defeat of incumbent Democrat Gov. Roy Barnes in 2002.

Consider the statistics in the last two elections for governor:

• In 1998, 57 percent of voters in the July 21 Democratic primary were women. Forty-nine percent of voters in the Republican primary were women. More than 54 percent of voters in the general election were female. Barnes defeated Republican multimillionaire Guy Millner, 52 percent to 44 percent. Barnes swept the female vote.

• In 2002, 58 percent of the Democratic primary voters were women; 49 percent of Republican primary voters were women. In the general election, 54 percent of all voters were women. Yet Democrat Barnes lost in the general election partly because women schoolteachers voted en masse against him. Their education-union leaders persuaded them Sonny Perdue was a better choice. Female voters are not likely to make that mistake again, Cox's strategists believe.

Women are in ascendancy in Georgia politics. A woman, Shirley Franklin, is Democratic mayor of Atlanta, Georgia's largest city. Karen Handel, Republican, chairs the Fulton County Commission, the state's largest county. Another Kathy Cox (R) is state school superintendent. K. Cox may have won her post mostly because voters confused her with the more popular and higher-profile C. Cox.

In any event, gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox is expected to reappear as soon as this caveman-dominated legislature picks up its clubs and creeps back into the bush. You can bet she will set to work immediately organizing the state's majority female voters to expel the Neanderthals from high office in next year's election.