The Gender War Wracking the GOP

For years now I have argued that no self-respecting gay individual could be a Republican unless they were (i) greed driven and obsessed with not paying taxes, (ii) openly racist, or (iii) suffering from deep seated internalized homophobia.  Now, a similar argument can be made about women who remain in and/or support GOP notwithstanding all of the anti-woman Republicans starting with Donald Trump and ranging to all of his male apologists.  To Trump and his male defenders, women are merely an object to be possessed and used by men.  They are second class citizens who some in the far right would like to even see disenfranchised, a sentiment that will increase if women overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016.  It is one thing to admire a woman's beauty - or a man's beauty as in this blog's male beauty posts - and something far different and uglier to see them merely as victims to be grabbed and assaulted at will to gratify a male's pathetic ego.  A piece in the New York Times looks at how many women in the GOP may be about to finally say "enough!"  Here are highlights:

Donald J. Trump has polarized men and women, with the sexes parting ways to such a degree that Election Day could produce the biggest gender gap in decades.

And now that division is being amplified by a gender war in the Republican Party itself. Men and women are taking sides over accusations of Mr. Trump’s mistreatment of women, with the latest controversy a blistering exchange between Newt Gingrich and Megyn Kelly of Fox News.

Increasing numbers of Republican women have turned on their party’s male leaders for defending Mr. Trump against accusations that he groped or forcibly kissed more than 10 women. Many are complaining publicly that for years, they stood up for the party against Democrats who accused it of pursuing a “war on women.” They are unable to do so any longer, they say, and they see hypocrisy in Republican men rallying behind Mr. Trump after the same leaders for years accused former President Bill Clinton of predatory behavior.

“These are spineless men,” said Brittany Pounders, a Republican activist and political blogger from Houston.

The latest CBS News poll, released last week, found that Hillary Clinton held a 19-percentage-point lead over Mr. Trump among women likely to vote. Among Republican women, 79 percent supported Mr. Trump. That was far below the 93 percent of Republican women who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Republican strategists with an expertise in reaching women are anxious that Mr. Trump’s candidacy will damage the party’s ability to appeal to them for years to come.

“I think we’ll see a lot of women walk away from the party over this,” said Katie Packer, who was Mr. Romney’s deputy campaign manager. “What you’re seeing is 20 years, 30 years of frustration coming together and really, really compounded in the last couple of weeks.”

“Men on our team don’t get how serious this is,” she said. “I think we’re all kind of disgusted that they don’t get that.”

In regions of battleground states with many college-educated Republican women, such as Northern Virginia and the Philadelphia suburbs, Mr. Trump is in peril with these voters long loyal to the party.

Some Republican women are now openly organizing to support Mrs. Clinton.  “Being a Republican woman is very different from being a Democratic woman,” said Jennifer Pierotti Lim, who leads a group called Republican Women for Hillary. “This sentiment that Newt Gingrich was speaking to — if you’re a woman, you shouldn’t be offended by these things, you just should think about the issues — that’s pervasive.”

One of them is Wendy Lynn Day, who was pushed out of a leadership role at the Michigan Republican Party last week after refusing to endorse Mr. Trump. She criticized her party’s male leaders, saying that in past years, they had proclaimed that morality and character mattered in a president, but that they were ignoring that principle when it came to Mr. Trump.

“When we stood up and voiced our concerns about Bill Clinton taking advantage of a young intern and allegedly abusing all of those women, we were standing on the moral high ground,” Ms. Day said. “We gave away some of that moral high ground by the way we treated the women who’ve come forward with allegations about Donald Trump.”

“When your leaders come out and make excuses and use biblical analogies to defend and promote Donald Trump,” she added, “that to me crosses a line I’m not comfortable with.”

Republicans Remain Clueless on Women's Issues

With new polls showing him trailing His Democrat challenger, Charlie Crist, Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott sought an ad that would attract women voters to his side.    What he got from the College Republicans is a clueless ad that is both insulting to women - especially the segment of the women vote that Scott desperately needs - and Exhibit No. 1 of the problem of the  GOP's gender gap in general.  Contrary to what chauvinistic GOP males believe, women do care about more than shopping.  I have two bright, intelligent daughters who are far more politically savvy than these dolts think they are.    Slate looks at the clumsy GOP effort to attract women that in reality ought to be driving them into the arms of Democrats.  Here are highlights:

Today in GOP Outreach to Women: You Broads Like Wedding Dresses, Right?  At this point, it's hard not to wonder if the people being hired to do outreach to women on behalf of Republican candidates aren't all a bunch of Democratic moles. The College Republican National Committee created this ad for Rick Scott, who is running for re-election as governor of Florida, and it appears to be written by men who learned everything they know about women from reading bridal magazines. It's modeled after TLC's popular show Say Yes to the Dress, except it's called "Say Yes to the Candidate" and the "dresses" in this case are Rick Scott and Charlie Crist. 

"The Rick Scott is perfect," says our blond and youthful heroine, Brittany, admiring herself in the mirror while wearing a wedding dress, which is a thing Republicans have heard women like to wear. Her friends ooh and aah. But mom, who is of course a harridan because she dared age past 35, has other ideas. "I like the Charlie Crist," she says, as we see Brittany—an undecided voter, by the way—in a frumpier dress. "It's expensive and a little outdated, but I know best." Ominous music.

It turns out Republicans made this ad in bulk. As Bloomberg View's Jonathan Bernstein notes, "not only does Brittney 'the undecided voter' think that 'The Rick Scott is perfect,' she feels the same way about 'The Rick Snyder,' 'The Tom Corbett' and three other dresses. The ads are identical, only the candidate names change."

Far Right/GOP to Women: Stay Home Barefoot and Pregnant

If one wants proof that the far right elements and the GOP want to drag America back to the "good old days" of the 1950's it can be found in a new Heritage Foundation panel that recommends that women be content to be at home mothers - barefoot and pregnant if you will.  Missing from the panel discussion are (i) any recognition that women may not choose such a life and (ii) the financial reality that in the new Gilded Age economy so loved by the GOP, a married working man cannot support a family on a single income.  But then again, today's conservatives and the GOP are not living in a world connected to objective reality.  What's frightening is that Heritage is what counts as an intellectual "think tank" for today's far right.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the backward thinking.  Here are highlights:

The conservative minds of the Heritage Foundation have found a way for Republicans to shrink the gender gap: They need to persuade more women to get their MRS degrees.

The advocacy group held a gathering of women of the right Monday afternoon to mark the final day of Women’s History Month — and the consensus was that women ought to go back in history. If Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s mantra is “lean in,” these women were proposing that women lean back: get married, take care of kids and let men earn the wages.

. . . .  “feminism has done so much damage to happiness.” And the solution to this damage, it turns out, is matrimony — the same thing that will solve problems such as income inequality and the Republican Party’s standing among women.

This, they argued, also would have the felicitous effect of making women more Republican.  . . .

As a matter of statistics, this is true: President Obama’s 11-point win among women in 2012 came entirely from his 36-point advantage among unmarried women. But Republicans will be waiting a long time if they think they can improve their fortunes by persuading more women to get hitched. 

Essentially, they’re saying that Republicans aren’t the ones who need to change — women are.

There’s a running debate on the trade-offs of feminism, but this sort of traditional assault on the movement is unlikely to boost the GOP’s standing among women. If Republicans want to appeal to more unmarried women, they might reconsider the no-exception opposition to abortion and, increasingly, birth control that dominates the party. Otherwise, a throwback strategy of convincing unmarried women that they have been misled by feminism is tantamount to convincing Hispanics that they have been led astray by immigration advocates or telling young voters that they have been deceived by the gay rights movement.

The reality, the panelists at Heritage said, is that women are less happy than they were before the feminist movement, that women enjoy domestic work, and that most moms would prefer not to work full time, if at all.

Maybe so. But it will take some convincing. The audience for these pronouncements Monday was small and mostly male, many of them apparently Heritage interns.

“Wow,” said John Hilboldt, Heritage’s lectures director, as he opened the session. “Where are all the ladies?”  It’s a question Republicans may be asking for a long time.

While not mentioned, I suspect the panel also would like to see gays to once again become invisible and for blacks to once again "know their place" and be content with domestic work and blue collar jobs.  These people are living in a fantasy world.

Washington Post: Kaine Leads Over Allen 51% to 44%

Besides intensely hoping that Barack Obama prevails over Mitt"I'm A Liar" Romney on November 6th, I very much want to see my former classmate, George Allen, go down to defeat to Democrat Tim Kaine.  As noted before, George Allen's plan for America has changed little since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate 12 years ago even though the world and America's circumstances have changed markedly during the intervening years.  Allen still believes in large tax cuts for the wealthy, drastic cuts to social programs, blind fealty to Christianist extremists, and a subtle form of racism that is far too prominent in the Republican Party of Virginia.  In sharp contrast Tim Kaine - who I also know personally - understands that pushing recycled versions of failed GOP policies doesn't serve either Virginia's or the nation's best interests.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on Kaine's continued lead in the polls over George "Macaca" Allen:

Timothy M. Kaine enters the final days of Virginia’s U.S. Senate contest with a clear advantage over George Allen, a new Washington Post poll shows, keeping an edge despite a tightening presidential race and an avalanche of outside spending against the Democrat.

Kaine (D) leads fellow former governor Allen (R) among likely Virginia voters, 51 to 44 percent, nearly unchanged from the 51 to 43 margin the Democrat enjoyed in the Washington Post’s mid-September poll. While that survey showed the Senate race mirroring the presidential — Kaine and President Obama held identical 8-point leads — Kaine is now in a stronger position than his party’s standard-bearer.

The two men have raised nearly $30 million combined, and more than $40 million has been poured into the race by outside groups — the most of any non-presidential race in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — with the majority coming from Allen’s allies.

Kaine’s lead is fueled by a continued strong showing among women voters and voters in the Northern Virginia suburbs closest to the District, and comes despite growing advantages for Allen among whites and seniors. Kaine enjoys a 12-point edge on the question of which man would do a better job working with the other party on Capitol Hill — a focal point of Kaine’s message.

59 percent of likely voters say Obama was not a factor either way in their choice for Senate, while 25 percent say they would use their Senate vote to express support for the president and 13 percent say they wanted to express opposition.

Kaine has a seven-point lead on the question of which man better understands the economic problems of Virginians, and also has a 12-point advantage on which candidate is “the more friendly and likable person.”

Overall, Kaine is viewed favorably by 57 percent of likely voters and unfavorably by 33 percent. Allen’s rating is 50 percent favorable, 37 percent unfavorable.

 

The gender gap in the race continues to widen, with Kaine leading among women by 18 points and Allen holding a narrow four-point edge with men. Allen has the backing of 56 percent of white likely voters, while Kaine is supported by 77 percent of non-whites, including 86 percent of African Americans.

Is Virginia Going Purple?

As noted in the prior post, one of the problems for conservatives in Virginia is the changes in demographics which tend to favor Democrats particularly in national elections.  All of the population growth is occurring in more liberal leaning areas and shifting power for the rural and backward portions of Virginia which have for too long held the state back in terms of accepting modernity.  The big question is whether or not the changes have progressed far enough to spell the beginning of the end for  knuckle dragging members of the Virginia GOP.   Politico looks at what's happening (note that Republicans don't accept that the state is changing).  Here are highlights:

Virginia may have reached a tipping point in the 2012 elections.  Major demographic changes in the state over the past 10 years — including a sharp influx of Hispanics and single women in Northern Virginia and the changing nature of the outer Washington, D.C., suburbs — may have finally reached critical mass, permanently converting Virginia into a swing state in presidential politics.

“It’s not a red state any more, it’s a very purple state,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who lives in Northern Virginia. “Northern Virginia has changed the complexion of this state completely.”

The new landscape began emerging in 2008, when Barack Obama won the state by 7 points over John McCain, driving up African-American turnout and winning Northern Virginia by 19 points.

But public polls in the 2012 race show that 2008 may not have been a fluke, but a more long-term realignment of state politics. Despite loads of time and money invested there, Mitt Romney is trailing Obama in Virginia by as many as 9 percentage points, according to a recent Washington Post poll. Tim Kaine is also leading George Allen in the Virginia Senate race. Republicans argue that their internal polling shows the presidential race closer.

In presidential politics, Virginia used to be firmly in the Republican column, having never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 until Obama four years ago.    But Republicans were heartened by Gov. Bob McDonnell’s sweeping 2009 victory and felt that returning the state to GOP hands in 2012 was well within reach. Obama has privately told people that in a close election, Virginia would be the decisive state.

The biggest shifts are to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. — which contain a high proportion of government workers, single women and Hispanics — all demographics that tend to favor Democrats. But the changes have also radiated outward into the previously reliably conservative counties. In 2008, Prince William went to Obama, who took 57 percent of the vote, compared to 2004 when George W. Bush won with 53 percent. Stafford County went to Bush big in 2004, with 62 percent of the vote, but McCain captured only 53 percent in 2008.

Loudoun County and Fairfax are also keys to any candidate’s victory. Bush won Loudoun County in 2004, taking 56 percent of the vote . But Obama captured 54 percent of the vote there four years later. And in Fairfax County, while it went to John Kerry in 2004 with 53 percent of the vote, Obama was able to drive up the margins there in 2008 and took 60 percent.

Virginia’s changing dynamics are also evident in this year’s Senate race, where ex-Gov. Kaine is outperforming ex-Gov. Allen. Allen operatives profess a lack of concern and say they’re counting on cross-over votes from those supporting Obama.

Romney is also far behind with women in Virginia — by 19 percentage points according to the Washington Post poll (compared to the sample of men that found Romney leading by 6 points.) And Obama’s campaign is doing everything it can to make the gap larger.