Kitchen-Table Issues
Barack Obama plans to aggressively court women voters by focusing on issues like equal pay, health care and the economy.
Amid all the convention stories about unity with Hillary Clinton's loyalists, a new strategy has begun to emerge from the Obama campaign to win over her supporters. It has nothing to with roll-call votes or soothing the dashed hopes of Clinton's vocal donors. But it has everything to do with the women and working families who were her strongest base of supporters in the primaries.
The new approach was fully on display at Michelle Obama's first campaign event after her prime-time speech at the convention. Surrounded by women governors, and aided by the vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, the candidate's wife held a roundtable with several working mothers.
"With Barack, you get the fight for equal pay for equal work; with Sen. [John] McCain you don't," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. "With Barack, you get the commitment to get to universal health-care coverage; with Senator McCain you don't. With Barack you get the commitment to get out of Iraq on a real-time basis; with Senator McCain you don't. With Barack you have a real plan to keep people in their homes to prevent foreclosures for people who are in home loans they can't afford through no fault of their own; with Senator McCain you don't. This election is about big differences that make a big difference in the quality of all our lives. That's why we have to go out and fight for it and win it."
In fact the Obama campaign has been planning for several weeks to spell out those big differences to women voters. After the convention, Team Obama says it will spend heavily on ads targeting women, educating them about McCain's track record on key issues that affect them—especially abortion rights, equal pay, the economy and health care.
"John McCain has a problem with women," said one senior Obama aide. "If his margins with women don't improve, he's going to have a very hard time winning this election."
The Obama campaign points to McCain's deficit among women in the polls, saying he is doing worse than any candidate since Bob Dole in 1996, who won just 38 percent of the female vote. Obama's lead among women is currently between 10 and 15 points, with McCain running 10 points behind George W. Bush in 2004 and 5 points behind Bush in 2000.
McCain has tried repeatedly to exploit the tensions between Clinton supporters and Obama this week, cutting several ads with that goal. But Obama's strategists believe their new focus on women voters will more than compensate for that strategy.
There's another argument that the Obama campaign won't make in public but that nonetheless could halt the wedge strategy in its tracks: the impeachment of Bill Clinton. McCain voted for Clinton's impeachment—a track record that should make him hard for diehard Clinton supporters to stomach.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: bammer @ 09/14/2008 12:59:38 PM
Comment: WHEN THE LIBERAL ELITE "MAIN STREAM MEDIA" INJECTS ITSELF INTO A NATIONAL US ELECTION, IT LEADS TO THE "LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES"
IF THERE'S WAS NO "MSM" BIAS AGAINST HILLARY, HILLARY WOULD BE THE US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND OBAMA WOULD BE THE VP CANDIDATE
IF THE TICKET IS CLINTON/OBAMA.....THERE IS NO SARAH PALIN EFFECT
IF THERE IS NO SARAH PALIN, THERE IS MCCAIN/ROMNEY REPUB TICKET
THEREFORE, THERE WOULD BE 8 YEARS OF CLINTON/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
THEREFORE, THERE WOULD BE 8 YEARS OF OBAMA/KEANE ADMINSTRATION
BY US LIBERAL ELITE MEDIA BACKING OBAMA AND TRASHING HILLARY, THEY LOSE A POSSIBLE 16 YEARS IN POWER AND WILL PROBABLY NOW LOSE 8 OUT OF THE LAST 11 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
FOR YOU MR. WOLFEE, NO AMOUNT OF OLBERMANN/MADDOW HISTRONICS CAN CUT THROUGH WHAT THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD ELECTORATE SEES IN THE "MSM"
Posted By: imposter @ 09/04/2008 12:50:12 AM
Comment: RICHARD WOLFFE:
Here's another argument that the Obama campaign won't make in public but that nonetheless could halt the wedge strategy in its tracks: the impeachment of Bill Clinton. McCain voted for Clinton's impeachment???a track record that should make him hard for diehard Clinton supporters to stomach."
There's nothing you won't do - no level you won't descend to to help your messiah is there? That's the scummiest thing yet from all you cult followers. And you write:"The Obama campaign won't make in public". You just did. Newsweek is part of the Obama camp. You are the proObama propaganda newsletter. The fact that you still don't Include a disclosure of your proven beyond a shadow of a doubt corruption shows you lack any semblance of jjournaliistic integrity - just like everyone at Newsweek and MSNBC.
Posted By: Leonardgrundyforpresident @ 08/29/2008 6:54:37 PM
Comment: Hello, I have a plan to kill the electoral college in November. It's posted on my web site. I wonder how much you and everybody really care about fixing our broken politics and really doing some good for our nation.
This is no joke or pipe dream, I've researched it and it is possible for us to kill the electoral college this November if we as Americans do what is needed, which is just one thing, vote for the idea and watch it happen. I put myself out to be the tool to get this done for every American that has complained saying we need to get rid of this electoral college and start voting only for the candidate we want as our president.
I turn to you cause you are talking to the American people, my voice is not being heard will you lend yours to getting this done?
www.LetsVoteAmerica.com
LetsVoteAmerica@ymail.com
Leonard F. Grundy
704-712-0545