Listen to Your Wife
Feb15
By John Feehery
In the afterglow of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would pay homage to the real deciders in this coming election: Wives.
White men cast the deciding votes in Republican Primaries.
White women, more specifically white married women, decide General elections.
It was white married women who put President Obama in office. They backed George Bush over John Kerry. They narrowly backed Bush over Gore. They backed Clinton over Dole, and Clinton over the other Bush. And they backed Bush over Dukakis and Reagan over Mondale, and Reagan over Carter.
As any married man knows, the wife is the ultimate decider.
And if momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy.
White married women, after falling in love with Barack Obama, fell out of love with him in 2010.
The question is whom will they love in this coming election.
Republicans thought that Sarah Palin was going to be their closer in 2008, but her pick backfired with that key demographic.
White married women didn’t think she was a credible candidate, according to the polls, and that was part of the reason they swung for Obama. It didn’t help that John McCain appeared so out of touch, so cranky and so old compared to the junior Senator from Illinois.
McCain didn’t understand that women vote. It is unclear if he listened much to his wife.
Bush, on the other hand, seemed to tailor his campaign message specifically for his wife. In his first campaign, he talked up education, something that must have appealed to the former librarian in Mrs. Bush. In his second campaign, he told his wife that he was going to keep the nation safe, and that appealed not only to Laura Bush but to married women all over the country.
The question today is what appeals to the white married woman in 2012.
Economic security is always top of mind. Getting her husband out of the house and into a job is very, very important.
Education is important. Can her kids get into a decent school? Are the schools teaching my kids the right values? How are we going to afford college?
Personal security, especially safety for the kids. She doesn’t want her kids bullied, either in the classroom or on the Internet. And she is worried about crime.
Since married women live longer, they are worried about their own retirement security. What about my nest egg? Will Social Security and Medicare be there for me?
Fairness? Maybe, but only if it is fighting for fairness for my family. Married women don’t begrudge rich people. They are fascinated by them. So, when the President bashes the rich, he needs to be careful.
Practicality dominates. Having a practical agenda is important to appealing to white married women. Most married women who live harried lives, having to shuffle the kids to school, get to work and vainly find that Nirvana known as the work-life balance, don’t have time for ideological discussions.
Yes, they find all of that discussion about Constitutional conservatism amusing, but they want to know the bottom line. How will it make their lives better?
The top Republican candidates have to be smarter about how they message to white married women.
Newt, to his credit, understands the importance of white married women, which is why he always talks about Callista. I actually think he does listen to his wife and uses her as a sounding board. That is why Newt tends to talk in more practical terms (even if some his ideas are kind of wacky).
I doubt Santorum runs much of his stuff by his wife. He has said some awfully polarizing things that simply don’t play well with the bulk of white, married women.
Romney should play the best with white married women. He is certainly not a zealot on the cultural issues, and his strategic ambiguity could be helpful in a general election. But he has to get a better message on how his plans will help improve the economic and personal security of America’s middle class.
It is awfully easy to play to the men in the primaries and forget who really rules the roost in the general election. The leading Republican candidates better start listening to their collective wives if they actually want to beat Obama in the Fall.
A very practical statement from a Republican. Of course, white married woman look at Calista and see a former mistress. It doomed Guilianni in 8. Romney is the only one who has a chance in this demographic, but it will be tough against an opponent who often speaks of his fatherly hopes for his two young daughters.
I don’t think Mitt Romney listens to much of anyone who isn’t a multimillionaire, yet alone to his wife.He talks about her like she is some foreign object. And it was a real, true-to-life slip when he said he “Loves to fire people.” Of course, he does. He’s fired thousands of people as a hedge fund con artist. So, where is the appeal to women in all that? Romney has no appeal.
I grew up as a Republican. But the religious right has managed to take over the conversation and the power in the Republican party. Republicans seem to stand for getting the government off your back and into your vagina, as if that represents liberty. My friends, who are mostly fiscally conservative, are so appalled by this overwhelming change in the Republican culture that we are leaving in droves. The religious zealots are not just a fringe group on the right when all the candidates pander to them. In the meantime, Obama has done a great job repairing the damage he inherited, and I think that he will win. I certainly will vote for him.
Well said. I grew up as a Democrat but I think the parties need each other. We have an excellent Republican representative in our district in West Virginia. Its sad that the Republican party has been hijacked by these people. It all seems like a severe backlash to all the civil rights, women’s rights, and diversity movements. They want to go back in time to where they think people “knew their place”. I think the dominant American culture is in transition and is trying to find out what this widespread awareness of diverse cultures really means. Hopefully the Republican party will find its way. I’m a Democrat but it does all of us good when Republicans stick to their real values.
“Getting her husband out of the house and into a job is very, very important.”
How about having a job oneself?
“Fairness? Maybe, but only if it is fighting for fairness for my family.” Fairness, yes, when it INCLUDES one’s own family, but also across the board. That is the definition of fairness, fair for all.
“Yes, they find all of that discussion about Constitutional conservatism amusing..” Not one white, married woman I know finds this discussion ‘amusing’. Frightening, yes, amusing, hardly. Enough reason to find the time for ideological discussion, yes. Enough reason to activate politically, absolutely.
And I am one of those white, married, independent voter women.
I am also a white, married, independent woman. I have a daughter who is becoming a cardiologist. My question is, why would I ever vote republican? They support forced ultrasounds, unavailable birth control, religious whackiness, and Rush Limbaugh. Romney pays a lower tax rate than I do and his policies strictly benefit the wealthy. There is nothing for me in the republican party.
Obama has actually done an amazing job as president. Look at all he has accomplished in just a few years. The problem with constitutional conservativism is not that as a woman I just can’t wrap my little mind around such an abstract notion (no thanks for the condescension) or that I want to know the bottom line, it’s that I feel that society is different from when the constitution was written (thankfully)Obama has actually done an amazing job as president. Look at all he has accomplished in just a few years. He did things that are important to women, like getting our children out of the senseless republican war in Iraq and making it so all Americans, including my children who not all established in careers, can get health insurance–this is something other countries take for granted!
The problem with constitutional conservativism is not that as a woman I just can’t wrap my little mind around such an abstract notion (no thanks for the condescension) or that I want to know the bottom line, it’s that I feel that society is different from when the constitution was written (thankfully) and no woman I know wants to turn back the clock to slavery times! We don’t want the court used as a way of enforcing conservative views in the name of originalism. The nuances of this debate are too long to handle in this space.
Republicans should stop trying to block progress and make Obama fail–which will hurt everyone–and get on board with making life better for everyone. Right now the republican party stands for gun control, far right religious conservatism, anti-women positions by Rush Limbaugh, destroying important safeguards like medicare, environmental destruction, and strangling the gov’t by blocking reasonable taxation. This republican party will not be getting a vote from me or my female friends. and no woman I know wants to turn
I was raised Republican. Dad was a precinct captain, and I spent part of my HS junior year handing out campaign literature for Goldwater.
Both these fine men have been dead for some years now. Both must be spinning like wood-lathes in their respective graves at what has happened to the GOP. The G now stands for Grotesque.
I voted against Bush twice; I plan to vote FOR Obama twice. I don’t think Daddy would disagree.
White married women voters may very well decide the next election, but I hope they’re smarter than the sampling that posted here.
The controversy over contraception was ginned up between Obama’s re-election team and their accomplices in the media. Was anyone railing against contraception when George Stephonopoulos asked that question of Rick Santorum? No. The question was asked to create a diversion from the horribly bad record of Barack Obama.
Do the Republicans want to take away contraception? No. Do they want an end to abortion? Yes. If a woman is going to have an abortion, she needs to understand that it is indeed a human being, not a ‘mass of cells’, which is what Planned Parenthood tells people. Should people have to pay for their own personal expenses, including contraception? Yes. Should those opposed to abortion (or contraception) have to pay for those things for other people through taxes or insurance premiums? No.
The Republicans need to learn to state their position more clearly, & they need to stop falling into the traps set by the leftists, but they don’t call it the Stupid Party for nothing. That being said, come November 2012 I will be voting for ANYONE but Obama. Another four years transforming this country will utterly destroy it!
That’s just silly. It’s always a left-wing-elitist-mass media conspiracy apparently…How about addressing the root problems of why women would want to get an abortion: lack of resources to care for a child, lack of adequate sexual education from the get-go and the social stigma associated with having a illegitimate child to name a few…
I’ve known women who have had abortions and to say that they aren’t aware that they are ending a potential life is simply not right. It’s always a tragedy. I recommend reaching out to women who have gone through this rather than vilifying them.
I totally agree, Kristina. Abortion is absolutely a tragedy. No woman I know thinks abortion is no big deal. This “left-wing conspiracy” thing has to go. It was the REPUBLICANS who put together the embarrassing all-male birth control committee in Congress. It was the REPUBLICANS who spoke out against birth control. They thought it would get them points for religious freedom, and it backfired. By the way, it turns out that covering birth control SAVES money. Yes. Birth turns out to be more expensive than birth control.
It would be good to cite Obama’s record instead of just saying it’s been horrible. In my opinion, for example, getting us out of the war in Iraq and signing a law that will give millions of people insurance who didn’t have it before (and which was a Republican idea before Obama ever came along) are good things. Now the economy and the stock market are recovering.