Barre Montpelier Times Argus, VT
12-14-07
Every woman's vote is fair game this election
By Julia Prodis Sulek San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. — When it comes to mobilizing women to support Hillary
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 Democratic frontrunner's local fundraisers and rallies. They're even making a
trip to Washington D.C., for Clinton's women's summit.
"These women are evangelizing for Hillary," she said. "They're holding house
parties, going to Iowa, doing fundraising. It ignited them."
Women voters have long been targeted by presidential candidates. Remember
soccer moms from the 1996 election? But never before has there been a woman
candidate as formidable as Hillary Clinton, nor one whose gender alone is giving
her an intriguing boost among women who see the historic appeal of the first
woman 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.
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 singular "women's issue" is galvanizing women 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 like 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's wife, Elizabeth, has taken to the campaign trail 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 of 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.
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 during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
That approach to "security moms" appeals to California Assemblywoman Sharon
Runner, who chairs Giuliani's women's coalition in California and has helped sign
up more than 1,000 women to the cause. And while she doesn't share Giuliani's
pro-choice stance on abortion, she says his leadership abilities trump his
abortion position.
EBay CEO Meg 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 American families by supporting
lower taxes and affordable health care and opposing abortion.
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 women voters as a bloc is not something Lisa Stone, founder of
BlogHer in Redwood City, Calif., 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 while 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.
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.
For Glennia Campbell, a mother who founded MOMocrats and supports
Edwards, she 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."