Mind The Gender Gap

Nation: Women Still Prefer Dems' Focus On Domestic Issues

(The Nation) 

Republicans have done a lot of overreaching in recent months -- from the Terri Schiavo case to fierce talk about gutting reproductive rights and cutting Social Security benefits. And perhaps the key insight that the survey offers is that women voters "overwhelmingly uphold the value of privacy for individuals and families, while rejecting government intrusion on issues involving religion and morality."

Sixty-two percent of women said that "questions of religion and morality should be left up to the individual, and it should not be the role of government to impose any particular religious or moral point of view on the country." And, the survey reveals, "women voters believe that the government has gone too far in dictating personal morality and even those whose own values are conservative are discomforted."

Women have moved away from the Republican Party because they believe that the GOP has overstepped the bounds on the relationship between religion and science. Even women who are uncomfortable with abortion rights feel strongly that the government shouldn't dictate morality and that scientific progress shouldn't be proscribed by religion. Most women believe in science and want the US to remain a leader in technology and innovation. (Think stem cell research.) That explains, then, another one of the survey's findings -- one-third of women who voted for Bush in 2004 won't vote Republican in 2006.

"The Republican drop-off encompasses virtually every demographic subgroup of women," EMILY's List reported, including "key segments of the women's electorate for 2006 and beyond" from social conservatives to non-college educated whites to Catholics. Women voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and want elected leaders to spend more of their time tackling domestic problems.

But if the political terrain is shifting away from the GOP the Democrats have yet to close the deal. The Democratic challenge is to create an agenda that both addresses women's economic concerns and "respects families and care giving to take full advantage of the opportunity that they have been granted."

As the Women's Monitor survey argues, women want politicians who will demonstrate personal accountability, care about people in need and provide equality of opportunity. According to the poll, Democrats also need to understand that women consider themselves "the arbiter of family values" and the "central caregivers" in their families, not the government.

The next few months could be crucial. The divisions in our electorate are going to come to a head in the fight to confirm a judge to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. The rightwing of the Republican Party will seek its reward for what it did in 2004, and Bush and the embattled Rove could pander to their base by sending up a Scalia clone. The GOP has already alienated many women, but if Bush nominates a right-wing judge to replace O'Connor -- one who fails to respect religious differences, families' privacy and ordinary Americans' economic problems -- he could find himself in even bigger trouble with women voters. He might feel the consequences in the 2006 mid-term elections and his party could take a big hit in 2008.