In my previous post Women and Politics: Dang It, We ARE Smarter! I said that I would discuss the 2008 election in a later post. This is that post.
2008: Barack Obama Women: 56% Men: 49% Gap: 7 % points
It’s old news that in 2008, women went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama: 56% of us voted for him, while only 43% chose John McCain even though his running mate was a woman. Let’s face it, if nothing else (and there was a lot more), we were turned off by McCain’s manipulative and badly executed choice of Palin to get the female vote.
The 2012 elections are coming soon. How will women vote after four years of an Obama presidency? In the midterm election of 2010, women went for the Republicans. Many did not see the economic movement that they had expected and so they either skipped voting or switched sides. It’s true that many of us are disappointed. I am one of those women. I am angry to see how this administration has allowed the Republican party to define and control the narrative and to systematically distort the Presidents’ message. I despair when I realize that this President’s preference for compromise hampers policy and decision-making within his own circle and prevents him from effectively counterattacking an out-of-control, obstructionist Republican party. I agree with the sentiment of a high-ranking female government official who believes that, in this administration , women have more balls than men.* Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren are two cases in point. I would even be more blunt and say, with all due respect, that President Obama needs to grow a pair.
Only time and history will tell whether we were right or not in choosing Obama in 2008. But now I will tell you why, in spite of everything I’ve said so far, I will vote for President Obama again in 2012.
He inherited a nightmare scenario from the Bush years: a huge deficit, a crumbling economy, and a financial meltdown. This would have been daunting for any president, much more so for one who was evidently not yet ready for the presidency. It is undeniable that he has stumbled but it is also undeniable that he is an intelligent, visionary leader who can learn from his mistakes. I believe that he is someone who deeply cares for the American people and a President who has nothing but good intentions for his country. You might, right about now, be thinking “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And to that I would answer, “Yes, but it is paved.” Less government is not the answer. The answer is a well-functioning one. I think President Obama has the intellectual capacity and the will to put us on the right track. I think he deserves the time to do it.
I can also tell you why I will not vote for the Republican Presidential candidate. I refuse to vote for the candidate of a party that continues to defend the failed policies of Reaganomics, where the rich get richer and the middle class gets poorer. A policy that brought heavy deficits throughout the 1980s by tripling the federal debt, and which contributed yet again to our ballooning deficit during the George W. Bush years. I refuse to support the candidate of a party that, in its one-track minded objective to regain the presidency, has systematically played a game of obstruction without regard for the common good. And finally I refuse to vote for the candidate of a party that systematically attacks women’s rights and undervalues our concerns.
If my views represent those of the typical woman, then the Republican party would do well to wake up and smell the perfume, that female essence that invariably leads us to know who’s right—and more importantly—who’s wrong, for our country.
*as reported in Ron Suskind’s book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.
