Not unlike many American men, George W. Bush has been rejected more often than not in his efforts to court women. Now the president has taken to talking about foreign women in his never-ending effort to score with more of the domestic variety.
As polling continues to show Bush suffering from the gender gap that plagues many GOP candidates, the president has adopted something of a campaign-trail affirmative action plan: Other things being relatively equal, he talks about how his policies have helped females.
Taking credit for liberation
On no topic is it more pronounced than foreign policy. To hear Bush tell it–and he wants lots of women to hear him tell it–his aggressive approaches in Afghanistan and Iraq have made him the great liberator for women previously under the repressive thumb of regimes where being female meant being something less of a person.
At events around the nation and at the White House, Bush takes credit for allowing Afghan females to go to school, train to be teachers, vote, own businesses, play soccer and wear their shoes of choice.
“Women were beaten for wearing brightly colored shoes,” he said of Taliban-era Afghanistan.
Presidential adviser Karen Hughes, now back on the campaign trail with Bush, said it’s an important message as the president stumps for female voters.
“The president’s policies have resulted in enormous life-changing differences for women and girls of Afghanistan and the women and girls of Iraq,” said Hughes, who has been active in efforts to help Afghan women.
It’s a point she wants female voters in this country to absorb.
“I think it is very important for women. I talk about it a lot. I have a passion for women and girls of Afghanistan. I think it does resonate with women. It also resonates with men,” Hughes said during a recent Bush campaign swing through Florida.
What Bush has done for women in the war-torn countries is crucial for their future, Hughes said. It’s also crucial for her boss’ future.
“It’s very important, particularly in a close election, that we reach out to all voters,” she said. “Women tend to be more swing voters than are many men. I think it is vital in a close election that we reach out to women, who could make the difference between winning and losing.”
The Kerry view
The Kerry campaign says Bush has done little to earn women’s votes.
More Top Picks Best End Tables
“Women are witnessing an unprecedented erosion of their basic rights,” the Democratic ticket said in a statement. “Over the last three years, they’ve seen attempts to block access to contraceptives, gag doctors from even mentioning abortion to their patients, freeze funding for family planning across the world, take away their constitutional rights to choose and ban medical procedures even when a woman’s health is at stake.”
Recent polling shows the gender gap still exists in presidential politics. Men tend to vote for the GOP candidate and females tend to vote for Democrats. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore did about 10 percentage points better among women than Bush did.
A Gallup Poll completed in August shows the gap persists. Men, admittedly a broad category including all kinds of people with all kinds of priorities, now favor Bush 52 percent to 45 percent. Women, also a group that includes folks all over the age, ethnic and political spectrum, back Democrat John Kerry 51 percent to 45 percent.
Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor-in-chief, said the trend dates back to at least the Reagan years. “Women are less in favor, generally speaking, of going to war than men are,” Newport said, acknowledging that Bush may have decided “he needs to speak to women with it comes to things having to do with war in other countries.”
And that is just what Bush is doing. In June, at a Rose Garden appearance with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush offered the message that has become a constant theme on the campaign trail.
“Three years ago, women were viciously oppressed and forbidden to work outside the home and even denied what little medical treatment was available,” Bush said.
Now, Bush noted, “Girls as well as boys are going to school, and they are studying under a new curriculum that promotes religious and ethnic tolerance. We pledge to continue this progress through a new $4 million women’s teacher training institute in Kabul.”
Bush also touted $5 million earmarked for small business training that will include efforts to get women into businesses.
Quoting a woman
Bush has even taken to quoting a woman about the importance of women.
“As my wife Laura has said, `No society can prosper when half its population is not allowed to contribute to its progress,”‘ Bush said.
Karzai, picking up on the message, bolstered Bush’s case by noting, at the time, that 35 percent of the 3.8 million registered voters in his nation were women.
“In certain parts of the country, in the central highlands, today I learned that the registration of women has exceeded that of men. They are more than 50 percent,” Karzai told Bush. “This could not have been achieved in Afghanistan without your help and that of the international community.”
Along the campaign trail, including a recent stop in Virginia, Bush talks about female voting in Afghanistan.
“Don’t you remember, there was some serious terrorist attacks on women, in particular, that had got their registration cards and were in the process?” he said in Annandale, Va.
Several days earlier, at a conference of minority journalists, Bush said, “You might remember the incident when the Taliban pulled four women off a bus. They saw they had voter IDs and killed them.”