Contra Costa Times, CA
12-10-07
Women become force in campaign
Presidential candidates fight to win support from increasingly powerful group in
election
By Julia Prodis Sulek
MEDIANEWS STAFF
When it comes to mobilizing women to support Hillary Rodham Clinton for
president, Lorraine Hariton is solid gold.
The Silicon Valley executive has networks -- from a women's leadership forum to
an informal theater group -- and knows how to use them. With Hariton's
prompting, her friends -- and their friends and their friends -- are turning out for
the Democrat's local fundraisers and rallies. They're making a trip to Washington,
D.C., for Clinton's women's summit.
"These women are evangelizing for Hillary," Hariton said. "They're holding house
parties, going to Iowa, doing fundraising. It ignited them."
Female voters have long been targeted by presidential candidates. Remember
soccer moms from the 1996 election? But never before has there been a female
candidate as formidable as Clinton, nor one whose gender alone is giving her an
intriguing boost among women who see the historic appeal of the first female
president.
Clinton's top Democratic rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, are not about
to concede that just because she is a woman, she is more sympathetic to
women's issues. And the leading Republicans, too, understand the math that
reveals women's impact on the presidential selection process.
With women making up a majority of voters -- 54 percent in 2004 -- both
Democratic and Republican candidates, along with their spouses, are making
special efforts to woo women this election season. They're reaching out with
intimate meetings, specialized Web offerings, fundraisers and high-profile
supporters on the stump, including Oprah Winfrey and eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
The only problem? No single "women's issue" is galvanizing female voters in this
election; instead, women in general are citing the gender-neutral issues of the
Iraq war and health care as their biggest concerns.
That hasn't stopped the candidates -- especially the Democrats -- from outlining
their women's agendas with specific issues such as equal pay and child care.
The top Republicans are appealing to women through the broader issues of
health care, education and -- depending on the candidate -- family values and
homeland security. All the candidates make clear their position on the perennial
hot-button women's issue -- abortion.
Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, has taken to the campaign trail -- including to
downtown San Jose to meet with mommy bloggers -- suggesting that her
husband has a better record on issues important to women than Clinton does.
Obama's campaign has released a 20-minute video highlighting Obama's wife,
Michelle, explaining how her husband spent his entire life surrounded by strong
women, including a single mother (not to mention nabbing the golden
endorsement from Oprah, a cultural guru for many women).
Clinton stresses her record on women's issues, from going to Beijing in 1995 to
declare that "women's rights are human rights" to being an advocate as a U.S.
senator for children's rights as well as strengthening equal pay and making family
planning services more accessible.
Along with Hariton's efforts in Silicon Valley, the Clinton campaign across the
country is sending "tens of thousands of Hill-grams" to supporters and forming
new networks among female nurses, lawyers, civic leaders, businesswomen and
book clubs, said Ann Lewis, who oversees Clinton's women's outreach
campaign.
"We were convinced that these networks were a very powerful force," Lewis said.
Republicans are reaching out to women as well, with broader appeals.
At a National Federation of Republican Women conference in Palm Springs this
summer, Rudy Giuliani was the only GOP candidate to appear (the notable
absences of other GOP candidates irked many of the women in attendance).
Giuliani spoke about his ability to lead in times of crisis, as he did as mayor of
New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
That approach to "security moms" appeals to state Assemblywoman Sharon
Runner, who is chairwoman of Giuliani's women's coalition in California and has
helped sign up more than 1,000 women to the cause. And though she doesn't
share Giuliani's pro-abortion-rights stance, she says his leadership abilities trump
his abortion position.
Whitman leads Republican Mitt Romney's "Women for Mitt" and has been
traveling the country talking about Romney's pledge to strengthen not only the
American economy and military, but also American families by supporting lower
taxes and affordable health care and opposing abortion rights.
Women have voted in greater numbers than men since 1964 and in greater
proportion to men since 1980, said political scientist Diane Bystrom from Iowa
State University. For decades, political strategists have been breaking down the
women's vote by demographic. Married white women as a bloc, for instance,
were considered swing voters who could shift their allegiance back and forth
between Republicans and Democrats. Since 1996, though, they've been more in
the Democratic camp. In 2004, a majority of every female demographic group
voted for Democrat John Kerry over George Bush.
Referring to female voters as a bloc is not something Lisa Stone, founder of
BlogHer in Redwood City, appreciates.
"Is there any other group with such incredible diversity of age, race, income,
education level that has ever been referred to as a bloc? That is ludicrous,"
Stone said. "It turns out women care about more than how to cook a chicken well
in five minutes."
What she sees on the women's blogs is that although women will write about
fashion, food, family and health, "they will also talk about what's happening to the
monks in Myanmar, they will talk about Iraq, complain bitterly about the treatment
of veterans and they will promise their allegiance to anyone who can fix health
care."
But how men and women perceive the issues is often different, said Bystrom
from Iowa State. When woman talk about crime, she said, they often are
concerned about personal safety. Men, however, tend to be more concerned with
such issues as the right to bear arms, she said.
Glennia Campbell, a Palo Alto mother who founded MOMocrats and supports
Edwards, perceives the issues in a generational sense.
"A lot of people similar to me," she said, "educated, have children, are looking at
our voting decision and the impact it's going to have on our children."
Reach Julia Prodis Sulek at jsulek@mercurynews.com or 408-278-3409.