Free Republic

"America, this is what a feminist looks like"Who said that about Sarah Palin? Would you believe the president of LA's National Organization for Women, Shelly Mandel? Amazing! This is quite a moment for her to push back against the pressure from the feminist groups who see Sarah Palin as a traitor because she's a Republican and pro-life who actually lived her principles. Let's hope more mainstream, liberal feminists come out of their closets and support Sarah because, as Shelly said, Sarah supports women's rights, equal pay, Title 9, and the middle class. She has integrity and demands it from others....

NEW YORK, Oct 05, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Hillary Clinton would beat Sarah Palin head-to-head by a 2-to-1 margin if the 2012 presidential election were held today, according to women voters. A national telephone survey of 600 registered women voters was conducted by Blum & Weprin from September 25 through October 3, 2008. The poll, commissioned by SheZoom.com, a new women's internet media company, is titled 'Palin vs. Clinton - You Decide.' The survey (with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points) queried women in all 50 states on their personal and political preferences pertaining to the...

Both Presidential candidates are fighting vigorously to win over women voters, recognizing women could decide their fate on November 4th. How does Barack Obama plan to win over women voters? By highlighting his pro-choice record? By promoting his healthcare policies? By promising to make America more secure? No. No. No. In 2000, the candidates fought over an important voting block of women labeled “soccer moms.” In 2004, this influential voting block of women was relabeled “security moms.” In 2008, Obama’s campaign is trying to turn these women and others into “equal pay moms,” women who will vote for him because...

WASHINGTON -- Women have donated twice as much money to Barack Obama than John McCain in the 2008 election, reversing past trends that favored Republicans, according to an analysis by the Women's Campaign Forum Foundation. In the 2000 election, women donated twice as much to then-presidential candidate George W. Bush as to his Democratic rival, Al Gore. In the 2004 election, women donated about the same amount to Mr. Bush and to Democratic Sen. John Kerry. Women are also on pace to contribute far more money to the presidential campaigns than ever before, the analysis showed. But they still make...

Published by AJStrata under 2008 Elections, All General Discussions, Sarah Palin OK this is the biggest poll shocker I have seen since the Palin selection for VP: Since picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has obliterated what had been a 34-percentage-point deficit in a poll of likely women voters on the question of which candidate has a “better understanding of women and what is important” to them. The two are now effectively tied, with McCain’s 44 to 42 percentage lead within the margin of error of the most recent poll conducted by pollsters Kellyanne Conway and Celinda...

Feminists against Palin - shame on you Phyllis Schlafly Saturday, September 20, 2008 The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is a big step forward for women, but a long backward step for the movement we have been taught to call feminism. That is obvious from the anguish, indeed the fury, of feminist commentators. They are so intemperate in their criticism that they are incoherent. Men who are clueless about feminism naively think all women should be cheering. Sarah Palin is a woman who has done it all; she has a successful and even more promising career, five children...

In 1984, after founding the Renaissance Women, to counter the radical feminists who were claiming to speak for ALL women, we were on the national radar. As a very young, conservative, I was pitted against a veteran feminist, Gloria Steinem, on the Phil Donahue show. The issue was whether women should be supporting Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President because she was a woman. Gloria Steinem and Sarah Palin: Feminism and Women Voters I remember the event vividly. Phil teed it up, hit the long ball to the audience and let Gloria and I fight it out. What happened though...

STERLING, Virginia (CNN) – Firing up supporters at a women’s rally with Joe Biden in Virginia Friday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski told the crowd, “Democratic women, we wear lipstick too!” referring to Sarah Palin’s now-famous joke that the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom is lipstick. “You and I know that we women in America are mad as hell and we don’t want to take it anymore,” the spirited Maryland senator said. “I’m here today to say to you, we’ve got to get ready here, ok? Women, square your shoulders. Women, Democratic women, we wear lipstick too!” “We don’t...

Meet the woman of the year: White, high school–educated and probably on the north side of age 50, she is getting the worst of a bad economy. She's worrying about whether her daughter will be able to afford college and her father his medicine. Her husband can barely afford the gasoline it takes to get back and forth from a job he's in danger of losing - and with it, their health insurance. She's getting her hair cut less often and sometimes has to put her utility bill on her Visa. She's the woman doing the laundry at 11 p.m.,...

“We’re seeing a moment in history,” said Missy McQuattie, a Reno businesswoman. As for Palin’s lack of national-international experience, she said “she’’s a quick study.” She said her niece told her all her sorority sisters who were Obama backers are switching over to the GOP ticket because of Palin.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin knows what it is like to be a woman, a mother, a daughter, a sister - things the two men on the Democratic ticket can never fully understand. She knows what it is like to grow up invisible in an incredibly sexist society, to be stared at, groped and sexually harassed. She knows what it's like to worry that you are pregnant when you don't want to be or that you are not pregnant when you want to be. Sarah Palin knows what it is to experience the joys and sorrows of motherhood, to nurse a...

Jessica Goral had pretty much made up her mind two weeks ago: she was going to vote for Barack Obama. Then John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running-mate. “She empowers a lot of women,” said Mrs Goral, a mother of two in Macomb County – a national bellwether in the battleground state of Michigan and an area rich in white, working-class swing voters who will play an important role in deciding the election in November. “I like that she’s a brand new mother, and that she has the courage to stand behind her pregnant daughter. She relates to working...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not only firing women up on the campaign trail but she is also exciting women on the Web. A dot-com startup is seeing a huge rise in traffic because it asked women what they think of Palin. In a Silicon Valley coffee shop, women were checking the latest political news wirelessly on Thursday. That is good news for Deborah Perry-Piscione. Her Web-based startup, bettyconfidential.com, just surveyed women about what they think of Palin. The company got a wide-ranging response. "Women are somewhat torn because they think she's terrific," Piscione said. "Incredible to have a woman...

Fairfax, Virginia - The crowd burst into cheers of 'Sarah, Sarah, Sarah' as the Republican candidate for vice president waved alongside presidential nominee John McCain and their spouses. If Senator McCain meant to excite the conservative basis of his centre-right party by naming Sarah Palin as his running mate, his decision was vindicated by the reaction from the red, white and blue- clad crowd at a campaign stop in Fairfax, Virginia, one week after the obscure Alaska governor's landmark convention speech to introduce herself to Republicans and the nation. Palin has raised eyebrows since being pegged as McCain's number two,...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has gained huge support among white women since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among those voters, according to a survey published yesterday. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of Mr McCain's surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women. The race for the White House is now a virtual tie, with Mr Obama at 47 per cent support of registered voters and Mr McCain at 46 per cent, the poll found. Before the Democratic...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain has gained huge support among white women since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among those voters, according to a survey published on Tuesday. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of McCain's surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women. The race for the White House is now a virtual tie, with Obama at 47 percent support of registered voters and McCain at 46 percent, the poll found. Before the Democratic National...

Suddenly, it's Poll City around here today. As The Ticket reported earlier, the new Gallup/USA Today poll found a significant post-convention bounce for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket, a turnaround of 8 points to give the M-S ticket a 4-point lead over Barack Obama-Joe Biden. A new political button for the Republican presidential ticket of Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska But now this afternoon come two more national polls essentially confirming the same trends with some significant subterranean changes: -- the ABC News/Washington Post national poll of registered voters, which shows Obama's 6-point August...

There has been much discussion in the media and blogosphere regarding the female support or lack thereof for Palin. Is she good for American women? Should she be admired for her humble roots and elbow tossing rise? Should women vote Obama/Biden because of their sensitivity to feminist issues? The following is a pictorial to help those undecided voters sort out who support who.... Those supporting Palin/McCain: Laura I Tammy Bruce Michelle Bachmann Laura B and Cindy Mac Michelle Malkin Ann Coulter Marsha Blackburn Megan Kendall Gretchen Wislon Amanda Carpenter Dana Perino Amy Holmes ------------------------------ Now for those opposed to the...

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., making up huge ground among white women since putting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the ticket. Reports ABC News Polling Director Gary Langer:from 50-42 percent in Obama’s favor before the conventions to 53-41 percent for McCain now, a 20-point shift that’s one of the single biggest post-convention changes in voter preferences." Among white women, 67% percent view Palin favorably; 58 percent say her selection makes them more confident in McCain’s decision-making. Among those with children, Palin does even better than that. In a letter to Maria Bonaparte, Dr. Sigmund...

There's no question many multitasking women across Connecticut see themselves in the everymom image spun by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the GOP. They like her spunk, her style and the pride she takes in being both Super Mom and Super Gov. "Her personal story is very compelling," said Kerry Doherty Laberge, a stay-at-home mother of two from Farmington who writes a blog called Gruppie Girl. "I'm a PTO mom, I'm a dance mom. ... I feel like I could take on the world some days." But just because Laberge can relate to Palin doesn't mean she intends to...

But now, after a chaotic introductory week that sparked national debates on McCain's judgment, Palin's experience and even her teenage daughter's pregnancy, the initial signs are not entirely positive for the reinvigorated Republican ticket. Interviews with some two dozen women here after Palin's convention speech found that these voters were not swayed by the fiery dramatic speeches or compelling personal biographies that marked both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Instead, they were thinking about the price of milk -- nearly $5 a gallon -- or the healthcare coverage that many working families here cannot afford. Even if they admire Palin's...

Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll shows little overall movement in the topline numbers today, with two-thirds of responses coming after Sarah Palin’s blockbuster speech at the Republican convention. McCain trails now by one, and still by three when leaners are included. However, Rasmussen detects a movement in a key demographic that could spell disaster for Barack Obama: The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while McCain earns 45%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46%. … As McCain has begun to chip away as Obama’s convention bounce, most of...

Sarah Palin is a woman. Hillary Clinton is a woman. Women just love voting for other women. Women candidates are interchangeable. Therefore, women who would have voted for Clinton are obviously going to vote for Palin. If this syllogism strikes you as stupid, that's because it is. Not to mention cynical and not a little bit sexist. Yet it also appears to be one of the reasons behind John McCain's choice of a running mate. Oh, lots of alternative explanations for his decision are floating around: McCain chose Palin because her staunch anti-abortion stance bolsters his case among Christian conservatives;...

Hillary Rodham Clinton has no intention of becoming a Sarah Palin attack dog. Photo: Composite image by Politico.com Hillary Rodham Clinton has no intention of becoming a Sarah Palin attack dog — but has no qualms about going after John McCain, people close to the former first lady say. “She’s not the answer when it comes to winning conservative women — she never was — and we’re not going to be anybody’s attack dog against Sarah Palin,” said a Clinton insider. “To be fair to Obama’s people, they haven’t asked us to do that.” Slamming Palin to win back women...

The tone and placement of the spread is no accident. In selecting Ms. Palin, a down-home girl with her own National Rifle Association membership card and anti-abortion narrative, the Republican Party is targeting a demographic of suburban women and small-town evangelicals that is as specific – and crucial to the election – as the towns she will visit over the weeks to come. “Her role here is, to borrow from Rush Limbaugh, ‘Babies, guns and Jesus,''' said Kyle Saunders, a professor of electoral politics at Colorado State University. “Over the past couple of election cycles there has been a slow...

To counter Palin, Obama to dispatch female surrogates ST. PAUL: Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Governor Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and creating a rapid-response team to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said on Thursday. Clinton's campaign event in Florida, her first for Obama since the Democratic convention last month, will include a forceful response to the searing attacks and fresh burst of energy that Palin injected into the race with her convention speech on Wednesday night, Obama aides said....

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Oscar award-winning actress Shirley MacLaine, who wrote several New Age books, told reporters at AARP’s 50th anniversary convention on Thursday it was “ridiculous” to think that women who voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) would vote for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is on the GOP ticket as vice president. “I think the idea of nominating her to commandeer some of the disenfranchised Hillary voters just because she wears a skirt is ridiculous,” MacLaine said, adding that critics who say she should stay at home with her infant son, who has Down...

ST. PAUL — Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday.Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said that she stood ready to help the Obama-Biden ticket, but they urged the campaign not to overestimate the impact Mrs. Clinton could have, noting that she had other commitments this fall, like campaigning and raising money for Senate candidates. Obama aides said the Clinton trip had been in the works...

Psst, Obama is a Weakling — Pass it on. News last night from The NY Times, via Riverdaughter, that Obama has run home to Big Sister to plead with her to fight his battle with Saracuda Palin for him. Oh, the poor Precious! Can’t face a tough woman on his own, huh? What’s the matter Barack? Just tell Saracuda that she’s likable enough. Call her a Sweetie and tell the media that she gets moody and bitchy periodically when she’s feeling down. That oughtta work. Or send Sebelius — woo-hoo! I’m sure she can take on Palin and come out...

Cedarburg - Anne Haines, 45, a Cedarburg mother of six, knows that life is messy. But she doesn’t know what to make of Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president. Like millions of American women who are considering how to vote this November, Haines is fascinated by Palin. The folksy Alaskan governor with the big hair, handsome husband and five children has reporters from The Wall Street Journal to the National Enquirer working overtime. Palin, nicknamed “Sarah Barracuda,” describes herself as a maverick and reminded people in her speech Wednesday that the only difference between hockey moms like her...

** EXCERPT ** HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) _ Barack Obama's campaign plans to employ high-profile female supporters in an effort to blunt GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's potential to persuade women to vote Republican. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all were scheduled to campaign for Obama in the coming weeks. Republicans say they hope Palin, who made her national debut with a feisty speech on Wednesday, could put some female voters in play. "We respect her. She's a skilled politician, as she proved last night," Obama strategist David Axelrod...

US women voters turned off by Palin's pick: poll ST PAUL, Minnesota (AFP) — Women voters remain unswayed by the Republican choice of anti-abortion, devout Christian Sarah Palin for vice president, according to a new poll released Wednesday. White House hopeful John McCain electrified his party's conservative base by naming Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five and Alaska governor, as his running mate on Friday. But 52 percent of voters polled in a survey for the women's activist group Emily's List said they would vote for the Democrat ticket of Barack Obama and his VP choice Joseph Biden, against 41...

To those who watched Senator Clinton’s speech last week, many found it to be more about her and her failed campaign than support for Barack Obama. Many thought it was more about her sending messages to her supporters about how she’ll be back and if you don’t support Obama, oh well. She kept a straight face to try to hide the animosity created during the Democrat Civil War where millions think she was abandoned by her party. This and the treatment by the Obama campaign has sent many angry voters to the McCain camp. The choice of Governor Sarah Palin...

Tom Brokaw’s Meet the Press this week was as prosaic as ever, but for one little line uttered by the increasingly partisan Andrea Mitchell. In a discussion about the McCain VP pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, guest Doris Kerns Goodwin, plagiarist/historian, said that the choice of Palin is a “very strange choice,” showing how little she bothered to even think about the facts. But the most outrageous analysis came from Mitchell who said that only uneducated, female voters will be drawn to Sarah Palin, not those smart, college educated ones.At about 5:57 into this clip Andrea Mitchell was brought...

ST. PAUL (Reuters) - Can a woman governor who likes to hunt and opposes abortion rights woo enough American women to her side to help win the White House for John McCain? That is the question as first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares to accept the Republican Party's nomination on Wednesday as its first woman candidate for vice president. Attractive to the Republican Party's conservative Christian base, Palin could help bring both men and women out to vote for McCain in the November 4 election. Opinion polls show a tight race with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who generally enjoys...

Pro-choice GOP women praise pro-life PalinRalph Z. Hallow Sunday, August 31, 2008 MINNEAPOLIS | Pro-choice Republican women, including one of their movement's best-known leaders, have embraced the strongly pro-life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain's choice for running mate. Somewhat surprisingly, Mrs. Palin has elicited enthusiasm not only from pro-choice Republican groups, but from many rank-and-file pro-choice Republican women. Ann Stone, who founded Republicans for Choice in 1989 and has led it ever since, told The Washington Times that in picking Mrs. Palin, Mr. McCain did what he needed to do to make the Republican National Convention a...

WASHINGTON, Pennsylvania (CNN) – This might not be the best way to reach out to those disillusioned Hillary Clinton supporters. In just her second appearance on the campaign trail with John McCain, newly-minted GOP running mate Sarah Palin was showered with boos on Saturday for attempting to praise Clinton’s trail-blazing bid to become the first female president. As she did at in her debut speech in Ohio yesterday, Palin appealed to the women in the crowd here in Pennsylvania with a political shout-out to Geraldine Ferraro, who preceded Palin as the first women to be tapped as a vice presidential...

Big speech Wednesday night. Big, biiiiiig speeech. • Forty-six percent rate McCain’s choice of Palin as excellent or “pretty good,” while 37% say it is “only fair” or poor. Over the past two decades, only Quayle received lower ratings after being picked for a ticket. • Women overall have a slightly less favorable view of Palin than men, but they also are a bit more likely more likely to say her choice would prompt them to vote for McCain. Among women, 20% say her pick makes them more likely to vote for McCain, 11% less likely. That compares to 16%-12%...

Surprise? First Two National Polls Find Palin Gains LESS Support from WomenBy E&P STaft Published: August 30, 2008 1:35 PM ET NEW YORK The first national polls on John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin yesterday came out today from Rasmussen and Gallup -- and contrary to what the GOP probably hoped, she scored less well with women than men. Here's a finding from Gallup: Among Democratic women -- including those who may be disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination -- 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely. From Rasmussen: Some...

As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joins the GOP presidential ticket as John McCain’s running mate, questions abound over whether her candidacy will benefit the Arizona senator in winning over the largest voting bloc in the presidential election — women. Palin is a life member of the National Rifle Association and a staunch anti-abortion advocate, both qualities that quickly earned McCain’s candidacy points with conservatives. But her stance on abortion, in particular, could make it difficult to win over disgruntled supporters of former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “Senator McCain made a historic and strategic choice in choosing Gov. Sarah Palin with...

Geraldine Ferraro, the first Vice-Presidential candidate of a major political party (Dems ‘84) feels that Sarah Palin’s candidacy will draw a lot of Hillary’s supporters who feel that Dean, Obama and the Media gave Hillary (and women) a raw deal in this election cycle to support the McCain/Palin ticket.. (this comment)

We need to stop bashing Hillary! I think we all know how formidable the combination of Hillary and Obama would have been and we got lucky with O's choice of Biden snicker snicker. Even more formidable would have been Hillary on top of the ticket. We want the PUMA's 18 million PO'd women to consider voting for McCain/Palin and attacking Hillary is a bad idea. It will make the Pumas mad as well as making Hillary mad. I think despite the speech that Hillary and Bill gave, they aren't going to do much to help Obama since they believe, and...

It is conceivable that some people will think John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate because she is a woman. I know you find this shocking, but I swear I have heard it mentioned. McCain does not believe in pandering to identity politics. He was looking for someone who was well prepared to fight against international Islamic extremism, the transcendent issue of our time. And in the end he decided that in good conscience, he was not going to settle for anyone who had not been commander of a state national guard for at least a year...

Sen. John McCain chose first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, little known on the national stage, as his vice-presidential running mate -- a surprise stroke aimed at attracting Hillary Clinton supporters, but which could undercut the campaign's key theme of experience. Sen. McCain passed over many high-profile, more conventional choices for the job, turning to a woman whose solid conservative positions thrilled the Republican base. Her reputation as a reformer in Alaska dovetails with Sen. McCain's image, too. As a small-town mayor, she took on her own party elders to run for governor in 2006, as an FBI corruption probed rocked...

I have watched excitement among professional, mature, experienced women turn into red hot anger as male Obama apologists try and claim Palin’s experience to be Commander-in-Chief (more elected years in office, more executive years in office, years commanding troops, years running a business) is less than Obama’s community organization and speech making. These arrogant males are trying to raise the bar for Palin while lowering it for Obama is pissing women off no end. This, gents, is why women want to break the glass ceiling and bury this crap once and for all. And the more the media and men...

[snip] Conservatives say that's not the point. They say Ms. Palin's traditional Christian roots and strong family credentials – she's got five kids, including an infant – will instead make inroads with the suburban "soccer mom" vote, a constituency that now favors Mr. Obama in the polls, and helped in President Bush's re-election four years ago. "Women, particularly those with kids, are all looking for someone who can kind of have it all," said stay-at-home mom Patricia Neerman, 33, whose husband chairs the Dallas County Republican Party. "It will definitely help invigorate women who might have been apathetic or on...

Matthews is on a tear about PUMAS and Palin...gotta tune in!

Women are not fungible. I don’t know if anyone sitting around with John McCain in the last few days has explained that to him; frankly, I don’t know if there even were any women sitting around with John McCain in the last few days. But, I think I understand a few things about Hillary’s base in the Democratic party, and why so many women have been so loyal to her, and if John McCain thinks that simply picking another person with similar anatomy is going to win their votes, he’s about to learn a very important lesson in gender politics....

This is not just a great victory for the pro-life movement because a pro-life female will be campaigning as VP for the first time. It also is the cause of an even greater victory - forcing the pro-abortion culture prevalent among Democrats to choose between being "for women" and being "pro-abortion. It was well-documented that Clinton's supporters among women have threatened to vote for McCain as a protest vote instead of backing Obama. Now, the deck is stacked even more towards that end. For the first time as a political voting bloc, female pro-abort voters will be FORCED TO CHOOSE...

Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest. Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain. The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak...