Yesterday, Politico published a leaked report commissioned by two Republican lobbying groups on how the party can better attract female voters. The report, based on a recent poll of 800 female registered voters as well as a series of focus groups, is titled “Republicans and Women Voters: Huge Challenges, Real Opportunities.” The central challenge facing the Republican party is that women—particularly single women and women who have graduated from college—are “barely receptive” to its policies, and are likely to consider the party “intolerant,” “lacking in compassion,” and “stuck in the past.” Here’s where the “real opportunity” comes in: If only the Republicans could explain to these women that they are wrong, their votes would come flooding in. The report says that it is a “lack of understanding” between women and Republicans that “closes many minds to Republican policy solutions.” Republicans can attract the female vote by attacking the Democratic claim that GOP policies do not promote “fairness” for women and dealing “honestly with any disagreement on abortion” before moving on to “other issues.” Today, R.R. Reno, editor of First Things (a journal that promotes “economic freedom” and a “morally serious culture”), published a very helpful essay illustrating how this fresh new strategy might work in practice. Reno begins his piece with a richly-drawn portrait of a hypothetical female Democratic voter: She is a “single, 35-year-old McKinsey consultant living in suburban Chicago who thinks of herself as vulnerable and votes for enhanced social programs designed to protect against the dangers and uncertainties of life.” (Reno does not specify the number of cats she owns, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume the answer is "several.") Reno speculates that this woman (whom he has invented and preprogrammed with opinions) feels “judged” by a Republican platform that opposes gay marriage, because “she intuitively senses that being pro-traditional marriage involves asserting male-female marriage as the norm—and therefore that her life isn’t on the right path.” So she votes for the Democrat, who does not appear to be “intolerant” of her lifestyle. Here comes the part of the exercise where Reno carefully instructs this fantasy lady liberal that she has chosen poorly, and that the Republican party is the logical choice for a woman in her circumstance. This woman is suffering from "various kinds of personal unhappiness related to the lack of clear norms for how to live," Reno writes. She secretly “wants to get married and feels vulnerable because she isn’t and vulnerable because she’s not confident she can." And so, actually, she should support the party that wants to force people into traditional marriages, thus improving her chances of getting married herself. (Perhaps she can marry a gay man?) If only our hypothetical cat lady could get on board, she would get a husband, the Republicans would get another married woman to add to their key demographic, and gay people would get totally screwed. (Yay?) In short, Republicans understand women plenty—it's women who don't understand themselves. Sounds like a promising strategy that will work with many, many sad single ladies that Republicans have invented in their brains. Next step: Finally granting imaginary women the right to vote. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...ive_to_republican.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_bot
It's sad when all the left has is snark. They're so insecure about their own positions, they can't simply respond to a position that differs with a simply policy response. It's pretty obvious what the GOP is really trying to say. There is an old saying--Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door--that I learnt was a fallacy in graduate school. What is more important than a better product? Marketing and message distribution. The examples are numerous where the inferior product wins. VHS over Betamax and PC over Mac are two of the most glaring. The GOP wins among married women, but they're getting slaughtered with young women and single women. The Democrats have done a terrific job, without much response from the Republicans, in using educational institutions and branding to make their position the default one for young people. How many teenagers think it's cool to be a conservative? Not many teachers teaching conservative values of thrift, personal responsibility, the benefits of economic freedom and liberty. Instead, we're taught that all the world's heroes come from the Left. There's a reason the old Churchill quote, "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain" holds so true. When we're young, we are naive and think of only opportunity. Most have never paid a bill nor have ever known real hardship. Most things have been given, and not earned. Of course the liberal point of view takes hold. It just seems fair. By the time one has reached middle age, experience has taken over. One learns if you work hard, you earn greater rewards and there are those that are content not to work hard at all. One also learns that--in the words of Nicolas Cage in "Raising Arizona" when he receives his first paycheck--"The government, she do take a bite". Nothing is free. Everything has a cost. Government isn't just a force for good, but can also be an impediment to liberty. Suddenly, all of those things that when you were young were so fair are revealed for what they are--wealth transfers. I'm not sure about the Republicans, but a free-market agenda has a tremendous amount to offer young people. There has been little or no growth in our economy, college costs are too high, which cripple young people with debt. They are forced to pay for an ever-increasing amount of retirees who live longer and longer and for benefits for people who make poor life choices and then expect others to pay. The problem is, they grow up thinking people on the right are evil. That's marketing. The GOP has a tough fight ahead, because they not only have to fight the inculcation of liberal institutions in which young people have been raised, the Democratic Party narrative of evil and uncaring Republicans, but human nature itself. It's not telling women they are wrong, it's that they are mistaken, that they shouldn't believe everything they hear. The Democratic Party wants to give you a life of Julia, a world where you are taken care of cradle to grave. Where you don't need a man, but you do need government. The GOP has to counter with a narrative of opportunity. That you don't need the government to take care of you. That you stay single and rely on yourself, rather than relying on a beneficent government. Or you can get married and rely on your family, give to private charity and raise your own children. Rely on government or rely on yourself? Which one is more feminist?
An interesting and thoughtful post Maxie - but with one key flaw. Many Americans have learned that "work hard and you will be rewarded" isn't true. The gap between those who do the work and those who reap the benefit is growing. The irony here is that I don't trust government much more than you do - I just have even less faith in corporate America.
Republican strategists should be forced to read the Jezebel blog for 12 months without being able to comment before making any moves to attract female voters. They might accidentally learn something.
Regardless of what they learn, they should just know that calmly explaining to women why they are wrong is pretty much idiocy.
Nah. The problem comes from the size of their task. Young people, and especially women have been raised and educated that the earth is flat, and only crazy bigots believe the earth is round. Now try to educate those people that the earth is round. No matter how much evidence that the policies of the Democrats promote female poverty and tear apart families, the group think among the young is it's the GOP that are whackjobs.
Why? Sometimes people simply believe things that are not true. For example, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your insurance and only those who make over $250K will have to pay more. Many people believe it to this day, even though it is categorically untrue. How would you propose to let those people know they are mistaken? Belittle them? Call them stupid? Sometimes, you simply have to calmly present the evidence, make your case why you could do better and let people make up their own minds.
