Clinton Makes A Play For The Female Vote - AJC

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Tue Apr-08-08 01:02 PM
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Clinton Makes A Play For The Female Vote - AJC

By Kirsten Scharnberg
Published on: 04/08/08

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CHICAGO — In a recent Hillary Clinton fundraising video, the cameras purposely zoom in on the faces of enraptured female supporters. They pan to signs in the crowd: "Pennsylvania Women for Hillary," "Our Mamas for the Mama" and "The Butler Girls (heart) Hillary." The spot focuses almost entirely on women.

"She is a symbol for the females," one Pennsylvania woman says into the camera. "I'm 60 years old, and I want her to win."

From the beginning of her historic run for the White House, Clinton has worn with pride the mantle of the first viable female presidential candidate, citing how women who were born before they had the right to vote routinely send her letters of encouragement and envelopes of money. During the earliest days of her campaign, she talked about breaking "America's highest glass ceiling."

Yet the Clinton campaign also has had to tread carefully on the topic of gender to avoid alienating male voters who may still struggle with envisioning a female commander in chief, as well as some as well as some female voters who, many analysts believe, worry that Clinton is too polarizing a figure to successfully represent their gender.

But the Pennsylvania Internet video — along with get-out-the-vote rallies aimed directly at women and a slew of recent comments on sexism from Clinton's surrogates and recent events that have highlighted the intersection of gender and politics in the campaign — is evidence that Clinton's focus on her role as a female candidate is becoming more overt than ever.

Some analysts suggest that as her chances of winning the nomination grow slimmer, the Clinton campaign has little to lose and will increasingly focus on gender as a way to motivate her base and increase campaign contributions as well as to explain how unfairly they believe she is being treated by the news media and the Democratic Party.

Former President Bill Clinton told a crowd in North Carolina, "Apparently it's OK to say bad things about a girl." Madeleine Kunin, the former governor of Vermont and a Clinton supporter, fumed over recent calls for the candidate to quit the race, saying, "It seems a bit patronizing to say, 'Honey, you've got to drop out for the good of the party.'"

A Clinton campaign strategist said the New York senator had previously not made regular appeals from the stump involving gender, although she would sometimes frame the issue in talking about "how historic this election is for the party and the country."

But her campaign now is appealing more directly to women, particularly in light of what the campaign says are the negative reactions of females to calls from some Democrats, including those aligned with rival Sen. Barack Obama, for Clinton to exit the race, said the adviser, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on strategy.

"We hear from a lot of women who are upset by the call from Obama supporters for Hillary to quit," the adviser said. "We are appealing more directly to them at this time. ... We've been flooded with e-mails from women and hear about it at events every day."

Former Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who considered a run for president two decades ago, has watched with fascination as the Clinton campaign grapples with "the gender card." Schroeder, who has endorsed Clinton, said there still is no blueprint for how a woman should act when running for the White House, particularly when the odds grow long.

"For a man, if you need him to be more powerful, you put on a blue blazer, a white shirt and a red tie," she said. "If you need him to be more accessible and down to earth, you lose the jacket and loosen the tie or throw on a casual shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

"For women," Schroeder said, "there is still no formula for how to appear as a credible political candidate. They usually either look like a Vogue model or an unmade bed."

And...

No doubt, a gender gap has helped Clinton in some regards. Older, middle-age and working-class women have remained core constituents. A recent poll looking at voters in the pivotal upcoming battleground state of Pennsylvania found that Clinton leads Obama among female voters by 60 percent to 31 percent. Yet young, well-educated women are turning to Obama. For them, gender is not a driving factor in their vote — or even a factor at all.

"They absolutely believe a woman will be president during their lifetime," Sanders said. "They don't feel that is their battle at all. And these women believe that they as women will benefit just as much from an African-American man who is going to work to impact racial disadvantages. Women know that, historically, when minorities are positively influenced, so are women."

Schroeder summed it up like this: "I think what you're hearing a lot from people is basically this: 'I'm all for having a woman president — just not this woman.' "

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Link: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/08/clinton_women_0408.html

:shrug: