Pat Dollard | Young Americans

LMFAO

Lets “Hope” McCain gets all this womans votes too..

June 9, 2008 — WHAT do women want? That may end up the overriding question for the rest of this campaign.

Polls show around 30 percent of Hillary Clinton’s voters saying they’ll vote for John McCain. Most will come around - but if only 5 percent of her 18 million voters stray to the GOP side, that could be enough to swing the election.

The McCain camp is on it. It believes it can siphon off older female voters, who are skeptical over Obama’s lack of experience. McCain clearly heard Clinton’s battle cry after the final primary, when she said she wanted her voters to be respected. His surrogate, Carly Fiorina, even told reporters she believed Clinton suffered sexist treatment during the campaign - music to these Clinton supporters’ ears.

McCain started courting Clinton’s voters in the days between that last primary and her concession speech. He said the media had mistreated Clinton and talked of how much he respects her, noting she was often underappreciated.

Now he’s planning a campaign tour to reach out to her voters, as well as to independent female voters. His campaign has dedicated part of its Web site to them, and is mobilizing high-profile female surrogates to flood states where Clinton won.

The McCain camp no doubt knows what the Bush camp knew in 2004: The Democratic Party has a history of taking its base voters for granted. Women are now being treated the way African-Americans normally are: We don’t need to do anything to win them over, because where are they going to go?

After 2000, the Republican National Committee began an aggressive outreach effort to try and peel off black support from the Democratic Party and saw success in swing states such as Ohio and Florida, where it targeted its efforts.

John Kerry won the 2004 black vote in Ohio by only 84 percent to President Bush’s 16 percent, a 7 point jump in black support there for Bush over 2000, in a state that was key to Bush’s victory. In Florida, Bush gained six points over 2000, going from 7 percent to 13 percent of the black vote.

Kerry won the black vote 88-11 nationally. And with Obama heading the ticket this year, no one expects blacks to stray. But the Bush effort demonstrates that Democrats shouldn’t take any constituency for granted.

Many Democrats believe all Clinton’s supporters will “come home” once they learn about McCain’s position on the choice issue. But some doubt it.

Geraldine Ferraro dismissed the idea in a conversation with me last week - noting that these voters had already voted for an anti-abortion rights Republican before: Ronald Reagan. More, she said, these sophisticated voters know that Democrats will keep control of Congress no matter what, blocking any extremist nominees for the Supreme Court.

One of the many Web sites that has cropped up for disgruntled Clinton supporters, “Don’t Be a Good Democrat!” has a section called “Is it safe to vote Republican?” This outlines why Hillary supporters needn’t fear voting for McCain, including Ferraro’s argument. Another group, called “Clinton’s for McCain” is making the case for switching their votes.

Working to McCain’s advantage is that Clinton supporters will get angry all over again if Obama doesn’t choose her as his running mate. (And he most likely won’t, by all accounts.) They remember when Clinton was ahead and conventional wisdom said that she’d have no choice but to choose him as her veep, lest African-Americans would feel slighted.

One Obama supporter, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), told The New York Times of Clinton voters: “We need them very, very badly, and we shouldn’t be able to be afraid to say that we need them.”

She’s right: It’s time to start wooing the ladies.