Posted on 10/18/2012 6:48:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
An interesting story from last winter: An e-mail friend, a staunch Republican who lives in an affluent suburb far from Washington, was watching one of the Republican debates with his wife, a staunch Democrat.
He was surprised by her response to Mitt Romney. “He’s a grown-up. He’s someone who is reliable,” he told me she said. “People will feel safe if he is in charge.”
I’ve been thinking about that e-mail in the wake of the first presidential debate on October 3 and the vice-presidential debate last week. (This is written on deadline before the October 16 Long Island debate.)
There’s obviously been a surge toward Romney. He was trailing in just about every national poll conducted before October 3. He has been leading in most of those conducted since.
His national lead was matched as swing-state polls came in. In the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, he’s ahead or even in states with 248 electoral votes. He’s ahead, even, or within two points in states with 301 electoral votes, 31 more than the 270-vote majority.
Fascinatingly, it appears that he’s made greater gains among women than among men. The USA Today/Gallup poll has him running even with Barack Obama among women, 48 to 48 percent. Pew Research Center’s post-debate poll has women at 47 to 47.
That’s a huge difference from 2008, when the exit poll showed Barack Obama leading John McCain among women by 56 to 43 percent. Men favored Obama by only one point.
All the evidence suggests that the first debate made the difference. “In every poll we’ve seen a major surge in favorability for Romney,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told USA Today’s Susan Page.
“Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney,” she went on, “and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them.”
That sounds a lot like what my e-mail friend’s wife said last winter.
Obama-campaign strategists are pooh-poohing the notion that Romney could be making gains with women.
“Why, he’s against ‘access to contraception,’” they thunder. That was something we heard a lot about at the Democratic National Convention.
But it’s code language. “Access to contraception” turns out not to mean access to contraception. No one anywhere in the country is proposing to ban contraceptives. The Supreme Court ruled in 1965 — 47 years ago! — that states can’t do that.
The code language refers to the Obamacare requirement that employers’ health insurance pay for contraception. So “access” means you won’t have to pay the $9 a month that contraceptives cost at Walmart.
Big deal. That’s about the price of two pumpkin lattes at Starbucks.
Maybe it’s just possible that women voters are more concerned about an economy where 23 million people are out of work or have quit looking.
Or about a president who the day after the murder of a U.S. ambassador flew off to a Las Vegas fundraiser and for two weeks kept blaming that murder on a spontaneous response to a video, contrary to what his State Department knew on day one.
Joe Biden tried to appeal to women by predicting that a Supreme Court with more Republican appointees might overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal.
One is reminded that Biden was near the bottom of his class at Syracuse Law School. A Roe reversal, which is highly unlikely no matter who is confirmed to the high court, would simply return the issue to the states. Abortion wouldn’t be banned anywhere except, maybe, in Utah, Louisiana, and Guam.
Once upon a time, abortion was a defining issue for many voters. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, partisan preferences on both sides were linked to strong religious and moral beliefs. Voters didn’t switch parties much.
In the last half a dozen years, voters have responded more to events, emerging issues, and leaders’ strengths and weaknesses. Many switched parties to vote for Obama. Some, many of them women, are switching now to vote for Romney.
Women tend to be more risk-averse than men, and the gender gap grew when Reagan Republicans were depicted as scaling back welfare-state protections.
The debates may have shifted the perception of risk. The downcast Obama and the cackling Biden may have sounded dangerously risky. Many women may have felt, as my e-mail friend’s wife said last winter, that they would feel safe if Romney were in charge.
Readers who watched Tuesday’s debate can judge whether that still holds.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner
IMO, young woman are seeing him as a great parent and older women as a great husband. Just sayin.
I just find it so “fascinating” that all the ‘women’s rights’ people allow the Democrats to define women by and reduce them down to their ‘lady parts’. Evidently, per the Dems and Obama, women think with those parts, vote with those parts, and are too dumb to make decisions about and take care of those parts themselves. If that isn’t demeaning in the most humiliating, degrading and sexist way, I don’t know what is.
I was very taken in that he actually did missionary work. These are good, hardworking people....a fine example.
The Binders comment has no traction, just like the Big Bird “meme” the libs attempted.
What young woman today wouldn’t like to have a wise and wealthy dad? What older woman today wouldn’t like to have a man of character and wealth as her husband?
In my understanding, men in the Mormon religion are required to serve as missionaries for two years (I presume there are exceptions but not many) and that women may volunteer to be missionaries but are not required to go. My Mormon nephew spent two years in Italy. My niece’s husband spent two years in Japan. The travel (IIRC) is paid by the church but the living conditions during that time are quite spartan.
The typical time men do this is around their college years and it often means they get their degrees at an older age.
That’s not to take away from Romney for doing mission work but it was probably not entirely his choice.
It's very interesting to watch how these memes develop in social media, like Facebook and Twitter.
The liberals get all giddy and post these things back and forth among themselves and wait for them to take off and become huge.
Then the meme just fades away because nobody outside of the hardcore leftist boobs cares about their latest attempt to sway outsiders.
Nobody really got the point of the Binder thing. I still don't. The world gave it a collective shrug.
Big Bird was worse for them in that it turned around and made the left look like idiots, worrying about puppets when this Administration is spiraling into a shithole, economically and diplomatically.
I think it is even simpler than the article suggests.
Obama and the MSM painted a false picture of Mitt Romney.
People watched the first debate and determined that they’ve been lied to about Romney.
Most women aren’t stupid (except the NOW liberal type), simply it’s all about the economy and jobs.
They see gas & heating costs rise, their college educated kids unable to find a decent job strapped with huge student loans, women and their husbands are loosing their jobs...it’s not about free birth control, free abortions and free condoms.
Obama’s adviser’s are living in a 70’s fog.
Michelle Malkin had a great line on Fox and Friends this morn....”Women need to think with their lady smarts NOT their lady parts”
Encouraged....not mandatory....
This separating into groups when it comes to voting is wrong! They don’t want voters to zero in on what/who is good for America. If voters, young/old, male/female, all colors looked at a candidate as ‘are they good for America?’ - then they realize they would be good for them, also.
Something else I find fascinating is that the slogan for single issue pro-choice women voters is “government should keep their hands off my ‘lady parts’ “.
At the same time, these are the strongest proponents for Obamacare which has the government “put its hands” on every part of everyone - man, woman and Lady Gaga.
This is a piece Romney should hit - hard.
I know what you mean. He's a good man for that work and for many other admirable deeds.
On the other hand, when FR's little band of hateful Mormon-bashers make an appearance on this thread, they'll probably go bonkers to learn you that you've been taken in!
I heard the debate live, and didn’t even notice that “binders full of women” was a slightly odd business-speak turn of phrase.
I’m supposing some puerile leftists with odd sexual proclivities thought it was a double entendre and started t(w)ittering about it, resulting in a “meme” that only resonated with like-minded folks.
Because he is a leader and gives a feeling of “he has it under control”. Women are wired to be attracted to the man who can secure the cave and get the food. Ofcourse, there are exceptions to this but it is biologically how women are wired. Mitt Romney sends off those signals or whatever you call them.
Women are attracted to competence.
Unlike men, for women looks aren’t as important as ability. Despite all the talk of equality, most women really want someone they can depend on, not someone needy and incompetent.
The ordinary-looking but capable man wins out over the handsome slacker.
(Not that Barry0 is handsome.)
Thanks for the reminder .... I did hear her say that this morning and thought it was pretty clever.
The missionary work is not a choice but a requirement for obedient young Mormon men. It’s not always overseas. Those young men in white shirts on bicycles in your neighborhood are working off their requirement.
As far as I’m concerned, all Mitt did in his missionary service was suffer through a rather rigorous coming-of-age ritual in which he was cut off from his family (no communication) for two years and required to live in frugal circumstances. He did it because he had to.
Fine with me. Probably builds character. But it’s ridiculous to call boys barely out of their teens “elders.”
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