How To Pick Up Women
Talk about school daze. Two presidential candidates. Two separate schools. Two sound bites on the evening news about the value of education. That was the scene last week when George W. Bush and Al Gore visited classrooms in Michigan and Arkansas on the same day. The timing may have been coincidence, but the message was not. These men are dueling for women voters.
Women tell pollsters they care most about education, health care, gun control and Social Security. As one political observer put it, they want a practical discussion about "kitchen table issues."
This has traditionally been Democratic turf, as reflected in female voting patterns. For the past two decades, fewer women than men have voted for the Republican candidate in presidential elections. In 1996, 54 percent of women voted for Bill Clinton, compared to just 38 percent for Bob Dole.
But this year, the GOP hopes to slice into the Democrats' core. The Republican National Committee, lead by co-chair Pat Harrison, has stepped up efforts to attract women. Last summer, the RNC unveiled a program called "Women Care, Women Vote," to educate women about the party's agenda and to encourage political activism.
"This election will depend upon the women's vote," says Michelle Stemper, press secretary for Harrison. "It's our belief that all issues are women's issues."
And this year, Republicans have a candidate at the top of the ticket who seems eager to carry out that message.
"Bush has shown a whole different attitude about how to address (women voters) than any of the previous nominees," says Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who's keeping an eye on this development.
Mary Hawkesworth, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, also sees Bush positioning himself to court women. "His early campaign theme of 'compassionate conservatism' was clearly sculpted to appeal to women voters."
Despite their Democratic-leaning voting record, women remain an attractive swing vote. More women vote than men, and they don't typically base their decisions on party loyalty. And Bush's high-profile education agenda seems to have women's attention, at least for the moment.
In a Battleground 2000 poll released earlier this month by Voter.com, women preferred Gore over Bush by a narrow 4 point margin. The vice president's support was strongest among African American women and working women, while Bush fared well among married suburban women with children.
In a recent study published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Bush finished ahead of Gore among women under 50.
"If Gore had as much strength among women as Bush now has among men, he would be ahead in the overall race," wrote Democratic pollster Celinda Lake in her analysis of the Battleground 2000 poll. Lake conducted the survey wit Republican pollster Ed Goeas.
Indeed, the gender gap cuts both ways. Democrats especially need female voters to make up for the majority of men who lean Republican. In the polls by Voter.com and the Pew Research Center, Bush leads Gore by 10 points or more among male voters.
Carrick, who served as an advisor to President Clinton's 1996 California campaign, predicts that Gore will soon begin emphasizing Bush's record, especially his opposition to abortion and his support of a concealed weapons law in Texas.
"He needs to make sure the distance between George Bush and himself is clear to women voters," Carrick says.
The political power of American women will be tested this Mother's Day when tens of thousands of women will converge on the nation's capital for a "Million Woman March." Organizers of the event hope to influence Congress to pass tougher gun control legislation.
In the meantime, expect to see many more classroom photo ops. Research indicates that women voters wait until much later in the campaign season to make up their minds. And the campaigns know it.
"The real competition," says Carrick, "will be waged (for) suburban voters, primarily women, in the fall."