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Politics | 08/19/2008 9:03 am

McCain Not a Ladies' Man?

By The Staff at wowOwow.com
© AP

Barack Obama’s campaign is trying to convince Americans that John McCain won’t be successful in wooing women voters.

Dana Singiser, who oversees Barack Obama’s women’s outreach efforts, issued a memo Monday, arguing that the Republican presidential hopeful made a major effort to reach women voters in June because he’s so far behind his Democratic opponent in garnering the female vote.

"Despite his campaign’s outreach efforts, McCain’s attempt to bridge the gender gap has fallen flat," wrote Singiser. "He fares worse among women than any presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996."

Singiser, who is a former Hillary Clinton aide, noted that women have outvoted men in every election since 1964, and that during this year’s Democratic primaries, the women’s vote reached at least 59 percent in 14 states.

"During the Democratic National Convention next week we will mark Women’s Equality Day, the anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States,” she said. “Eighty-eight years after the right of American women to vote was written into our Constitution, the women’s vote will make the difference in this election."

CBS News and CNN note that McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds did not respond directly to the Singiser memo, but said: "Barack Obama is spinning this issue to disguise his support for higher taxes, and refusing to acknowledge that the legislation he’s promoting has more to do with paychecks for trial lawyers than the struggles of working women."

Bounds said the Equal Pay Legislation, which Obama supports, would benefit trial lawyers in part because it could lead to frivolous lawsuits.

Here are five reasons, according to the Obama campaign, that McCain can’t get the women vote:

1.) Women voters don’t trust McCain because of his extreme positions on the key issues important to them. Obama leads McCain by 10 points (42% vs. 32%) when it comes to which candidate women trust more. (The August 5 poll also found that 14% said they trust neither, and 5% trust both.)

2.) Women want change from the last eight years of neglect for America’s middle-class families and women’s economic security.

3.) Equal Pay: 77% of women believe the next president should address the issue of providing women with equal pay for equal work. McCain has opposed legislation to provide more effective remedies to victims of pay discrimination, and legislation to overturn the Ledbetter decision — a pay discrimination case filed by Lilly Ledbetter against Goodyear. The case was thrown out last year by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision delivered by conservative Justice Samuel Alito.

4.) Health Care Costs: McCain’s health-care plan "isn’t expected to make a major dent in the number of uninsured Americans," and he would – for the first time in our nation’s history – tax health-care benefits. Only 27% of women are very confident that they will be able to afford health care for themselves and their families. There is a disproportionate number of women who are uninsured or in danger of losing their coverage.

5.) Women’s Reproductive Rights: 62% of women believe that Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right, but McCain has bragged about consistently receiving a zero rating from pro-choice group NARAL during his 25-year voting career. McCain has repeatedly voted against federal funding for family planning, and accessibility of contraceptives for women. McCain’s support among Republican pro-choice women dropped by 9% after hearing his positions.

188 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Bonnie Oliver
Marjorie - Zogby Poll has John McCain ahead by 5 points. Also notes that among the 18-28 age category Senator Obama has fallen 12 points within the last month. Eyes are opening wide all around the country.
By Bonnie Oliver on 08/21/2008 12:56 am
Buh- Bye
McCain 9 points up now
By Buh- Bye on 08/23/2008 2:28 am
Star Lawrence
Hey—I said he was perky! He also spits it out—says what he says. I like that.
By Star Lawrence on 08/21/2008 12:06 pm
Bonnie Oliver
Hi Marjorie - Of course, Senator Obama will win more of the female vote than John McCain. If Senator Clinton were the Democratic nominee her percentage of the women’s vote would be even higher than Obama’s. More women are Democrats than Republicans. It is, however, the Democrat Party that woos women. They do it first with fear and then with compassion. The fear is the constant drumbeat that women’s reproductive rights are in jeopardy and secondly that the Republicans do not share or understand the sexism faced by many women every day. The Ledbetter case is used by Dems to showcase their false argument that Republicans do not believe in equal pay for equal work. It is false because if Ms. Ledbetter’s attorney had sued under the Equal Pay clause than she probably would have been upheld. Ms. Ledbetter had a worthy cause but bad attorneys. The Supreme Court followed the law as written by the legislature. But the Dems have stretched the argument as something like “those Republicans are just so uncaring”. When the Democrat Party decided that the women’s vote was going to be part of their base, then a platform was created to give preference to feminist groups such as NARAL and NOW. Millions of women who did not share the objectives of these groups were cast aside by the Dems and the split of the women’s vote became an actuality. The Republican Party does not treat women “special”; however, they do treat women as equals. However, since Republicans believe in a smaller central government, we do not put a constant demand on the federal government to fund or oversee what are primarily issues that are better governed by City, County or State government. The Democratic Party is the opposite. Their constant need to have the federal government involved in local matters is one of the major differences between the two parties. If the Obama folks continue to wail about the unfairness to women by the GOP, then they will have the same audience that they have been wooing since the 1970s. The Republicans will continue to look to the future and hopefully towards women who are tired of the old battles and are perhaps looking to the opposing party to see if they are more aligned than previously thought. The abortion debate was devisive and there was no middle ground. That fight is over and more and more women are looking at issues outside of feminism in which to determine their vote. With regard to the female vote, I don’t see how the GOP could do any better. We look to the future.
By Bonnie Oliver on 08/20/2008 2:33 am
Marjorie C.
Bonnie, you represent your party well. I’m so disappointed with the Dems right now — they’ve tossed so many of us aside. The Dems might be wooing women but I don’t think they have any respect for them — including/especially Hillary. I know we got caught up in a lot of infighting, hence the selection of Obama, but that party has become insane in what they’ve allowed and continue to allow. Thanks for the excellent report.
By Marjorie C. on 08/20/2008 6:51 am
Buh- Bye
Who knows, might be interesting to be a Republican after all these years. They do seem to have more fun. The upside of being a Democratic used to be that at least we had the moral high ground. Now that that is history (with this corrupt primary and the way the Obama camp continues its march to destroy the legacies of the first 2 term President and First Lady since Roosevelt), might as well go to the dark side and see what that holds.
By Buh- Bye on 08/23/2008 1:16 pm
K O
Oh, please. Girls don’t like him? This girl is trying to find someone who will choose an issue that’s important to her and question both candidates doggedly until she has a straight answer.
By K O on 08/19/2008 11:15 am
Marjorie C.
Kitty, I wish we could get the lowdown on health coverage: exactly what each candidate proposes, and how they plan to fund it. Universal healthcare is enormously expensive — anything less won’t do the job. I think McCain’s plan is the least effective, Obama’s plan slightly better. Maybe during the debates comparisons will be given. Too bad Obama would not agree to Town Hall conversations where this and other topics could have been hashed out. Voters are really not getting any decent information because the mainstream media is in the sack with Obama.
By Marjorie C. on 08/19/2008 11:44 am
James the Game
Here is a link to one page that outlines both candidates’ health-care plans: http://www.nursinglink.com/news/4791-obama-vs-mccain-whose-healthcare-pl…
By James the Game on 08/19/2008 1:28 pm
Marjorie C.
Thank you, James, but this link is kind of an Obama site. There was one sentence about McCain’s proposal of ‘individual responsibility’. I’m not sure what that is. Obama’s plan has a ‘… heavier government hand including subsidies and coverage of all children.’ Nothing is mentioned about how any of this is going to be paid for. But, it is a plan that Congress could work with/on.
By Marjorie C. on 08/19/2008 2:28 pm
James the Game
Marj…at the bottom of the Obama page is an arrow that you click, and it takes you to an entire page detailing McCain’s health-care plan.
By James the Game on 08/19/2008 4:05 pm
Marjorie C.
James, okay I found it — McCain was on page 2. Good site with plenty of info to digest. Thanks.
By Marjorie C. on 08/19/2008 4:25 pm
Linda Clark
James ….. thank you for the link, but where will the actual funds be appropriated from? Neither candidate has provided any in-depth data.
By Linda Clark on 08/19/2008 4:00 pm
James the Game
That’s Politicking 101…promise the moon and hope nobody asks how you plan to pay for any of it! Ha, Ha! But seriously, Obama says he’d pay for it by ending the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000-a-year, and through savings built into the re-tooled health-care system. The overall cost would be reduced by covering more people, meaning less uncompensated care that would be shifted onto the rest of the system. Obama would reduce employer costs by reinsuring employer plans for a portion of their catastrophic costs. However, that might be a bit of a shell game in terms of simply shifting costs over to the government. McCain’s health plan relies on market reforms to make the system more affordable for millions of Americans. His, too, is a bit of a monetary shell game. Somehow, McCain’s plan would re-toggle the existing employer tax benefits for the insured, and have money left over to support the millions who are now uninsured. His plan would rely on personal responsibility and consumer choice to make the market more efficient. McCain would reconfigure existing tax benefits to incentivize the system into being more efficient and supportive. It’s hard for me to fathom how McCain somehow can change existing employer tax benefits for the insured, and use what’s left over to provide benefits for the millions who are today uninsured.
By James the Game on 08/19/2008 4:55 pm
Susan B
Yes, a lot of what McCain is proposing with regard to health care is out of his reach (and scope!). I understand that many want less government involvement in our lives, but honestly, does anyone think private industry is going to step up to the plate and do what’s “right” at the expense of their profit margins? Guaranteeing health care, like or not, falls to our government. (As in, “promote the general welfare” from the Preamble.) We MUST find a way to make this happen, because even the hard-working among us cannot afford to be insured.
By Susan B on 08/20/2008 9:00 pm