At conventions, plenty of outreach to women and Hispanics with little policy detail
(CBS News) At last week's Republican convention, Mitt Romney sought to close large electoral gaps he has with women and Hispanics by highlighting a diverse cast of speakers. Amidst the parade of speakers, however, there was little said specifically about what a Romney presidency would do for these voters. And as the Democratic convention gets underway, it appears to be a repeat of what happened last week: plenty of outreach with scant policy details.
The Republican Party put forward its best and most diverse faces during for last week's nominating party. According to a CBS News tally, nine of the speakers, or 12.5 percent, were Hispanic and 27.7 percent of the speakers were women.
"That's by design obviously," Hogan Gidley, who ran media operations for Rick Santorum's presidential bid, told CBS News. "These conventions are set to build up and fill in the gaps and allow the nominee to make the ultimate sell for himself."
Democratic strategist Chris Lehane told CBS News that Republicans tried to appeal to suburban voters skeptical of Republican stances on social issues as well as "impact the margins. They need to get the gender gap down to 10 - 12 points. On the Latino piece, they need to get the vote below 65 percent" for Mr. Obama.
The polls show that Romney has some work to do. According to the most recent CBS News poll, President Obama enjoys an 11 percent advantage among women over Romney, and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll from last month showed Mr. Obama leading Romney 67 percent to 23 percent among Hispanics.
Romney's Strategy
The most high profile speakers at the Republican convention were tasked with trying to rectify the disparities - not through policy prescriptions but through emotional connection - of women and Hispanics. Viewers heard many personal stories but little about what a Romney candidacy would do for these voters.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Cuban-American whose family came to the U.S. when he was a young child, spoke about his family's farm in rural Cuba and his grandfather's talks about American greatness. "That's not just my story. That's your story. That's our story," Rubio said on the final night of the Republican convention just before Romney's acceptance speech.
"And it's the story of a man who was born into an uncertain future in a foreign country. His family came to America to escape revolution," Rubio said of Romney's father who was born and lived in Mexico for some of childhood before his family returned to the United States, attempting to connect Romney to millions of immigrant voters.
"It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right," Romney's wife, Ann, said in her speech, which clearly targeted women. "It's the moms of this nation -- single, married, widowed -- who really hold this country together. We're the mothers, we're the wives, we're the grandmothers, we're the big sisters, we're the little sisters, we're the daughters."
Appealing to voters' emotions is less controversial than delving into policy platforms, which explains why neither Rubio nor the handful of other speakers who spoke about their immigrant roots brought up the issue of immigration. Romney's position has been popular among the Republican base but is less likely to receive support from Hispanics and independent voters. During the primaries he backed self-deportation, which includes strict enforcement of immigration laws and increased workplace enforcement.
Furthermore, not one speaker mentioned abortion, an issue that derailed the presidential candidate's laser-focused message on the economy after Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, a Republican, made controversial comments about rape. Akin's comments led to a focus on Paul Ryan's views in which he opposes abortion in all cases, including in cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother.
Romney and his campaign have said repeatedly that the economy is the issue that matters most to women and Hispanics and that's how he is going to appeal to those voters. But polling suggests that other targeted issues are important, too. A June Gallup poll shows that immigration is tied with health care and unemployment as the issue most important to Hispanics. And a recent CBS News poll shows that although abortion is not among the most important issues to voters, 38 percent of women say they could not vote for a candidate who disagreed with them on the issue.
President Obama's turn
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, already has an advantage over Romney with women and Hispanics, but it doesn't mean he won't try to appeal to those voters to increase their lead.
"It is not so much as to make sure those people vote for them but make sure there is high turnout," Lehane said.
And the Democrats' convention strategy is only slightly different than the GOP's last week. Speakers have been carefully chosen to send a message to voters as the Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, are acutely aware of managing perception.
The chair of the Democratic convention is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a prominent Hispanic leader. And the keynote speaker on the first night of the convention was Julian Castro, an up-and-coming star in the Democratic Party who is the mayor of San Antonio, a city that is 63 percent Hispanic.
In his speech, Castro described his American story, which began with his grandmother, an immigrant from Mexico who was also an orphan. "By the time my brother and I came along, this incredible woman had taught herself to read and write in both Spanish and English," he said. "My grandmother didn't live to see us begin our lives in public service. But she probably would have thought it extraordinary that just two generations after she arrived in San Antonio, one grandson would be the mayor and the other would be on his way--the good people of San Antonio willing--to the United States Congress."
Like Rubio, the Republican keynote speaker, Castro appealed to voters by reaffirming America's greatness. "My family's story isn't special. What's special is the America that makes our story possible. Ours is a nation like no other, a place where great journeys can be made in a single generation. No matter who you are or where you come from, the path is always forward."
Also, like the Republicans, the Democrats have also devoted a tremendous amount of time trying to appeal to women. A number of female members of Congress and congressional candidates came out on stage together Tuesday; Nancy Keenan, head of the National Abortion Rights Action League spoke, as did Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who challenged her employer in the Supreme Court over wage discrimination. And during her speech Tuesday evening, First Lady Michelle Obama directly appealed to women voters saying, "You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still 'mom-in-chief.' My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world."
Democrats at the convention "have to remind people you were there for the past four years, the challenges of the particular groups and what [he] will do to address those challenges," Lehane said.
Like the at the Republican convention, Democratic speeches are full of emotive stories, snappy slogans and applause lines. But since the election is largely a referendum on the president's first-term performance, the Democrats have also woven in references to some of the president's accomplishments.
"And because he knows that we don't have an ounce of talent to waste, the president took action to lift the shadow of deportation from a generation of young, law-abiding immigrants called dreamers," Castro said to thunderous applause Tuesday.
Although he failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which he said he would do, President Obama bypassed Congress and signed an executive order in June enabling more than 1.5 million undocumented youth the ability to apply for residency, a move eagerly accepted by the Latino community.
Similarly, President Obama moved forward with a provision in the health care bill requiring employers provide free contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. The health care law also expanded preventative care coverage for women.
Although the words "war on women" - a slogan Democrats peg on Republicans for backing anti-abortion rights policies and their opposition to the president's health care law - were absent from convention speakers' addresses, the theme emerged.
"He believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care - that's what my husband stands for," Michelle Obama said during her keynote.
Lehane said, however, that the next step of the equation is just as important as connecting with viewers and laying out previous accomplishments. "You also want to make clear this is an issue of the future. It's a compound sentence: This is what we did and here's what we are going to do going forward."
Democratic convention speakers have yet to address that part of President Obama's case for reelection. Instead, they have spoken in generalities, saying he will continue to move the country "forward."
"[W]e must once again come together and stand together for the man we can trust to keep moving this great country forward," Michelle Obama said Tuesday night.
Republican strategist Hogan Gidley pointed out the conventions are traditionally not the place where those specifics are laid out.
"Most [specifics] would come in the debate," Republican strategist Gidley said.