Posted on 05/09/2005 10:23:49 PM PDT by Crackingham
The gender gap is now 25 years old and, according to recent polling, it is alive and well. A Democratic polling memo released yesterday found that women, who voted for President Bush last year in large numbers, have begun migrating back to their traditional home in the Democratic Party as the public's agenda has shifted from homeland security and terrorism to domestic concerns such as jobs and the economy.
There has long been a gender gap between the parties, with women tending to vote Democratic in disproportionate numbers. Bush all but closed that gap last year, losing the female vote to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) by three percentage points. But the memo pointed to a March survey that found women favoring Democrats when asked which party's candidates they would support if congressional elections were held today.
.....
"Homeland security and terrorism dominated the public's security agenda for several years following September 11th," the memo said. "However, the current focus appears to have shifted from safeguarding against terrorism to a stronger emphasis on issues that hit home financially. In dozens of recent focus groups among many different cohorts of women, concerns like retirement, health care and economic security are trumping the sorts of homeland security concerns that dominated women's issue agenda before the last election."
.....
Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said that she could not comment on the specifics of the polls but that she agreed with the general thrust of Lake's findings. "Women, if left to their own devices, are going to tend and trend Democratic. That is absolutely the case," she said. "Women are still congenitally Democratic -- and I'm the Republican pollster saying that."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
More proof that women, as a rule, base their decisions on emotion rather than logic.
And what elections have there been to prove this?
One reason why the term "The Weaker Sex" doesn't fade away.
It's baloney. I read this earlier today at DU...wishful thinking on their part.
An interesting point.
I can't decide whether this is wishful thinking or propaganda worthy of Stalin.
Yeah and I'm the queen of France.
They screwed this up.
The kind of shift here have to be from sampling.
The tell though is that last year, these women didn't just vote Bush, they voted GOP up and down the ticket.
I got a feeling they botched the sample in the areas they picked.
Yep....DEMOCRAT women with short attention spans who worry about their NEIGHBOR'S job and NEIGHBORS economic situation.....
Why wouldn't it be true? That always happens until we get close to elections and people start to pay more attention to the issues. Right now politics for most is primarily snippets and soundbites from the MSM. The same reason the polls usually show that most are against a policy, then the Prez gives a speech, and right after the polls show solid support. Plus the default reaction is that whoever is in power isn't doing a good enough job, regardless of the facts, and right now it is (in theory) an all GOP show.
I didn't read the article, but was there also a shift(though almost certainly smaller) towards the Dems among males? The excerpt just talked about the gap growing. Is this shift really any different than the usual cycles, and in fact is it possibly less than usual? The WaPo certainly has a track record lately of spinning their polls far from the truth.
Newspaper circulations are dropping rapidly.
This is a reason why.
When did they ever leave?
Outside of married white women with children, it is not wishful thinking.
It is a statistical fact.
What do you expect from people who can't even be taught to leave toilet seats up?
Good point.. I notice the dim supporters don't tend to think about if their own situation has improved.. But instead on whether they are above average in the society or not.
Sort of the dim reply to Ronald Reagan's question.. Are you better off today then you were 4 years ago? -Yes but the Jones' did even better, and now drive a nicer car then us! Thats not fair.
Reminds me of Hollywood movie ads: "Sensational!"..."One of the year's best!"..."Oscar-worthy..." Everyone knows the endorsers are fictitious movie critics.
I love women.
It's just that the way the majority of them have voted now for 3 generations means we conservatives have to be vigilant.
I leave the toliet seat down.
Makes women's party favors (my personal raison de voire) more likely.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a job where you just take the Democrat National Committee's daily fax and print it out as news.
No bias here though.
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