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W is for ... What?
Sep. 8th, 2004 01:46 pmBy Fran Wood
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Surfing the Internet the other day for a casual look at the merchandise promoting candidates this fall, I noticed that the Bush campaign's "W Stands for Women" T-shirt is "temporarily sold out." Frankly, I was surprised. It's not that T-shirts with Bush messages are unlikely sellers. Millions of people love the guy and are rooting hard for him to win in November.
It should be noted that "W Stands for Women" isn't just a T- shirt. It's a campaign, kicked off last May to target the same young women voters the Kerry campaign is after. Past poll data says these women are often casual about voting, with little interest in politics. But if enough of them can be convinced that it matters to vote for one candidate or the other, they could tip the balance in a close election.
How did a president who started his first term by eliminating the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach convince women he's their man?
His primary pitch, so far, has been touting the number of women who hold leadership posts in his administration -- which is, in fact, his strongest card. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is the most visible and arguably the most powerful woman in his administration. But there are others -- Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and domestic policy adviser Margaret Spellings, for example. His campaign says Bush leads all presidents in the number of women he's appointed to high-level positions, and while those numbers can always be spun, he hasn't been a slacker.
On the other hand, there's another aspect of his female appointees that's more traditional. According to a Washington Post article on White House salaries, the women there get paid only 78 percent of what men get paid.
Bush has also pushed his record on education, certainly a vital issue to women and one in which his administration's centerpiece has been the "No Child Left Behind" initiative. So maybe that sold some T- shirts. But one wonders if the wearers noticed something the president doesn't tend to mention: that the full federal funding necessary to implement the mandates in "No Child Left Behind" was never appropriated, leaving much of the cost to the states. In New Jersey, that trickles down to your property-tax tab.
It's quite unlikely the T-shirts have been bought by any women who favor reproductive choice, since the Republican platform calls for banning all abortions, even in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger.
( But wait! There's more! )
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Surfing the Internet the other day for a casual look at the merchandise promoting candidates this fall, I noticed that the Bush campaign's "W Stands for Women" T-shirt is "temporarily sold out." Frankly, I was surprised. It's not that T-shirts with Bush messages are unlikely sellers. Millions of people love the guy and are rooting hard for him to win in November.
It should be noted that "W Stands for Women" isn't just a T- shirt. It's a campaign, kicked off last May to target the same young women voters the Kerry campaign is after. Past poll data says these women are often casual about voting, with little interest in politics. But if enough of them can be convinced that it matters to vote for one candidate or the other, they could tip the balance in a close election.
How did a president who started his first term by eliminating the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach convince women he's their man?
His primary pitch, so far, has been touting the number of women who hold leadership posts in his administration -- which is, in fact, his strongest card. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is the most visible and arguably the most powerful woman in his administration. But there are others -- Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and domestic policy adviser Margaret Spellings, for example. His campaign says Bush leads all presidents in the number of women he's appointed to high-level positions, and while those numbers can always be spun, he hasn't been a slacker.
On the other hand, there's another aspect of his female appointees that's more traditional. According to a Washington Post article on White House salaries, the women there get paid only 78 percent of what men get paid.
Bush has also pushed his record on education, certainly a vital issue to women and one in which his administration's centerpiece has been the "No Child Left Behind" initiative. So maybe that sold some T- shirts. But one wonders if the wearers noticed something the president doesn't tend to mention: that the full federal funding necessary to implement the mandates in "No Child Left Behind" was never appropriated, leaving much of the cost to the states. In New Jersey, that trickles down to your property-tax tab.
It's quite unlikely the T-shirts have been bought by any women who favor reproductive choice, since the Republican platform calls for banning all abortions, even in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger.
( But wait! There's more! )
