"The Bush campaign is not anywhere in the hemisphere of where these women are..."Leslie Sanchez, political analyst for Bush/Cheney

Words to use in selling women on Bush:
Economy: Stability, college fund, children's fund
National security: Vulnerable, open to attack
Health care: affordable, trial lawyers, middle class families

I spent three and a half hours in a training session for grassroots leaders of the GOP, hosted by GOPAC, Newt Gingrich's group that led the Republican Congressional takeover in 1994.  The audience was full of ardent supporters of the Republican party, mostly elderly women who loved organizing and wanted to improve upon their already ample expertise and fervent belief-system.  Either lovely old ladies or nasty grandmas, depending.  Anyway, the most interesting part of the day was a presentation by Leslie Sanchez, Bush/Cheney advisor and frequent commentator on MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN, on how to win women voters.  According to Sanchez, women voters make up the majority of registered voters in every battleground state, and they are angst-ridden, scared, tolerant, cynical, distrusting, and want and fear change.  They are also the key to this election.

In 2000, there was an eleven point gender gap in terms of Republican support for women.  Women are more often registered to vote, they are usually registered independent, and Republican women - who tend to be married - are voting increasingly for Democrats.  The model is that they first vote for a Democratic female, and then start voting for Democratic candidates in general.  This trend is worrisome to Republicans.  The target for the Bush campaign this year is married women with high religiosity, women who voted for Bush in 2000 and value their family's safety.  The women's 'market' is incredibly dynamic, and 80% of household purchasing decisions are made by women (most married women spent their tax 2001 tax cuts at Home Depot).

The mindset of these married women is domestically oriented.  Mentioning progress women have made in Iraq or Afghanistan is not a vote driver.  On the economy, women value college funds, health care, and job security rather than the stock market and job creation.  Being able to switch jobs is what they care about.  Sanchez spoke of economic stability and safety, not security, security being too associated with national security.  Women like teamwork, not bickering, and feel like the heavy partisanship is a lot like their kids fighting - the point-counterpoint angle doesn't work, and while the Swift Boat ads worked really well with white men, it failed to work with women.  In fact, it turned them off.  Sanchez's strategy when she goes on TV is to 'increase the stress level of [the Democrats'] plan' and to 'stress the easier solution and the comfort zone' of the Republican alternative.  

She then showed us a focus group video of independent Republican-leaning women, 30% of whom are undecided.             

• "I don't believe anything anymore"
• "I don't like slinging mud and they all do it..."
• "I can't hear anything from a government and trust it."
• "I don't believe anything anymore and we can't make a difference because we don't have any truth..."
• "I don't really know aht's happening but I know someone knows what's happening."
• "I absolutely believe they have no clue."
• "They tell us to keep doing what I've always done, but watch out for something. If there's something I'm supposed to worry about why am I supposed to do what I've always done?"
• "Kerry hasn't won my trust yet, I don't feel safe with him.  I'm waiting to see, I think we are vulnerable."
• "If Kerry did win the change of hands of government would lessen the protection of the country... "
• "We're putting money into the college funds every month and it seems like it stays at the same level..."
• "What's going to be there when our kids are ready..."
• "What's going on with the economy... I'm not happy with my job..."
• "Turning the corner - I didn't get that one.  I want to find that corner and stand on that corner."
• "Can't have the same insurance for everyone.."
• "You need to have it tailored..."
• "You could the good doctor who actually listens or you can get the man who tells you that he knows better than you except you've been his mother for seventeen years..."
• "High drug prices... drive ninety miles to go the VA Hospital... medicines are too expensive...
• "My mother goes on the internet and gets it from Canada..."
• "Lawyers advertising on TV and saying get money quick..."
• "Malpractice awards are so high.."
• "People are going to different areas in different states - 10K versus 300K in malpractice insurance.."

The bottom line here is that women want change, and "the Bush campaign is not anywhere in the hemisphere of where these women are." National security debates have become very politicized, and women believe that the intelligence failures are because of a lack of communications.  They analogize this to a family - no one's family gets along, but when there's a family crisis we all work together.  These women are looking for a leader to step forward and say Republican or Democrat it's America's problem.  Still, when you raise the fact that we are not safe these women very much think that the transition will make us vulnerable.  In other words, "I really want change but..."

Women don't talk in terms of the deficit, but they understand the notion of government 'waste' and keeping the govenment from wasting money so that families can have more of it.  Finances are much more personal to women, and they care only marginally about the deficit.  America is creating new jobs falls flat, so does America is turning the corner.  Bush is going to deal with this issue by talking about flextime in his speech tomorrow, which will deal with the stressful problem of balancing work and family.

In terms of the medical system, women feel like the system is out of control, particularly in the quality of health care (not the number of uninsured).  They want to stick on the side of doctors, though the 'good doctor' instead of the other doctor who thinks he knows everything and doesn't listen.  Malpractice bothers them, as does the cost of drugs - they want 'high quality health care to all Americans at a price they can afford.'  Health savings accounts don't sell because they are too hard to explain, and they don't believe that the Bush plan helped to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

On socially conservative issues, women aren't buying.  They are tolerant with regards to gay marriage, they like to solve problems and deemphasize politics, and ardent pro-life or religious intolerance doesn't appeal to them.  Family and home come first.  Hispanic women are slightly more conservative, especially Spanish speaking ones, though they vote more than Hispanic men.

Conclusions

This is a women's Convention.  The Bush team needs the moderate center represented by married women - without them he is toast, and they are leaning away from him right now.  They are full of angst about where the country is going, they do NOT like the hard-right elements in the Republican Party, but they do not trust Kerry at this point.  The strategy is a scare strategy - make them fear Kerry's indecisiveness on national security, malpractice awards, and government waste.  Soothe with words of comfort, and raise the anxiety level and seeming partisanship of Democrats.  Bush is going to talk about Flextime tomorrow, which he claims will help balance work and family life, and he will stress solutions and unity.

Republicans are basically giving up on single women, with the only groups reaching out to them the feminist organizations largely on the basis of choice and women's health issues (my conclusion, not Sanchez's).  The hook for married women is through the family.  Bush's use of words like empathy (remember that quote, paraphrased here - 'I empathize with the mothers on 9/11 who had to choose which child to pick up first...'), concern, and compassion is largely to attract the married female vote.   In fact, there are two Conventions here.  The first Convention is the platform committee Convention, where hard-right social conservatives won big time.  The second Convention is in the hall itself, with moderates, the Bush twins, Laura Bush, George P. Bush (who is Hispanic), a racially diverse line-up taking center stage, and issues like flextime and unity emphasized by the President.  

I have talked to plenty of Republican women, and those who are not inundated with talking point syndrome (a contagious disease here at the RNC) tell me what a poor job the Republican Party has done to reach out to them (check out Bush's web site, which does not even have a section for women that I could find, although one women told me it was there but talked about how to serve coffee at Bush reelection parties - I heard a new group called 'W is for Women' is just starting up).  The bottom line here is that the President's messaging strategy so far has been a failure with women, and women will decide this election.  This Convention is an attempt to fix this political problem, but the only real solution is to scare women into voting for him, because Bush has no real successes that he can credibly point to (and that women believe).

I was really impressed with the seminar.  I came away well-trained on how to sell women on the Republican Party, but the strategy is remarkably cynical and completely framed in marketing terms.  A lot of it sounded like we were learning to speak in the language of women's magazines.  There was no discussion of whether any Republican policies are actually good for women - it was entirely tactical, though I suppose this is because the moral problems with not being a Republican are so self-evident as to make one's role in the Republican Party entirely about tactics.  Still, the Democratic Party simply has nothing like this for its grassroots trainers.  No high level Democratic official would ever admit a messaging failure to a group of supporters, and therefore supporters and surrogates don't know what frames work and which ones don't.

One last thought - The untold story of the primaries is that Kerry is extremely good with women - his campaign chair is Jeanne Shaheen, his campaign manager is Mary Beth Cahill, and his wife has an obviously strong personality which he respects deeply.  This comes through to women, where Kerry consistently polled higher favorables among women than anyone else.