Washington Post - Encouraged by Women's Response, Clinton Stresses Female Side
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page A06
AMES, Iowa -- The candidate was running late. But at the crossroads of Main Street and Kellogg Avenue here after dusk one night recently, a girl power rally was underway, even before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton pulled up to the event site.
Raining Jane, an all-female band, played a Joan Jett cover. White-haired women packed onto a riser. Ruth Harkin, wife of Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, took the microphone and roused the audience, saying the "first woman president of the United States" was on her way.
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When Clinton finally appeared -- introduced by a seventh-grade girl who precociously described the gender gap in American presidential politics -- the New York senator launched into her standard stump speech, wrapping up with what has become a familiar discourse about the demographics of the campaign trail. Clinton said she is "often struck at two groups of people" who come to shake her hand -- women in their 90s who want to make history and parents of young daughters.
"As I go by, shaking hands and meeting people," Clinton said, building up to the apex of her speech, "I often hear a dad or a mom lean over to a little girl, and say, 'See, honey, you can be anything you want to be.' "
In the early days of the 2008 presidential race, the question was often asked: Is the country ready to elect a female president? And Clinton seemed to be bracing to confront the doubters.
But as the primary campaign has evolved, giving Clinton a substantial lead in national polls in the race for the Democratic nomination, her public approach to the gender issue has shifted with it. Far from running away from the so-called woman question, she has taken to openly embracing it.
The result is a campaign that is much more overtly feminist than her own advisers had anticipated -- more House Speaker Nancy Pelosi than former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, more focused on reaching out to women than neutralizing worries about a woman candidate.
This week, Clinton is holding a series of events designed to underscore her strength among women. After a speech in New York on Monday, Clinton will unveil in New Hampshire on Tuesday a domestic policy initiative that aides say has implications for women, followed by a women's fundraiser on Wednesday.
In the latest Washington Post-ABC News survey, conducted in late September, 57 percent of women said they would support Clinton in a Democratic primary, compared with 15 percent for Sen. Barack Obama and 13 percent for former senator John Edwards. Of those who support Clinton, 31 percent said that her chance to make history was a factor in their decision.
At the same time, in a theoretical general election test against Republican front-runner Rudolph W. Giuliani, Clinton has a lead that is almost entirely attributable to women. She also has a gaping lead among self-described feminists, according to the same poll. Men and women who call themselves feminists preferred Clinton 64 to 30 percent, while those who did not were evenly divided between Clinton and Giuliani, 48 to 46 percent.
The flip side of her strong support from women is the potential for a backlash among men -- especially in a state such as Iowa, the first caucus state, which has never elected a woman to Congress. Mark Penn, her chief strategist, said the "level of emotional attachment" between female voters and Clinton is strong enough to help carry her through the Iowa caucuses, which he said he expected to be 55 to 60 percent women. Fifty-four percent of Democratic caucusgoers in 2004 were women.
"It may be true that statewide they haven't elected a woman, but that's very different from a Democratic primary or caucus," Penn said. He also pointed out that Clinton is faring better among men in recent surveys than she did earlier this year.
Asked in a recent interview whether she worries about a gender gap, Clinton replied: "Well, but it depends on how you look at all the various research that's been done.
"But I think there's a lot of room for growth, and I intend to do as much as I can to grow that," she said, smiling.
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As Clinton spoke two days later at GT Solar Inc., a renewable energy firm in Merrimack, N.H., several male audience members shook their heads and refused to clap.
"I didn't see anything alarming," said Jaime Navarro, a financial planning officer, after hearing Clinton speak. But he said he would not support her. "I just think a lot of the agenda she's putting out is very socialistic."
At the next Clinton stop, a town hall meeting in Derry, N.H., Leslie Harrison, 52, said the fact that Clinton is a woman is important as she considers how to vote in the New Hampshire primary. "Men have been making a mess of things for a long time," she said. "A woman would be more sensitive to sending our children off to war."
From the outset of the race, Penn and other Clinton advisers contended that she would gain a potentially decisive advantage from women voters. But her campaign had also forecast an emphasis on national security strength that, while present, has not dominated her candidacy.
In the interview on her campaign bus in Cedar Rapids the other week, Clinton played down the notion that she is favoring one demographic over another. "Well, I think I'm appealing to men, too," she said when asked whether she is appealing explicitly to women.
Pressed again about her effort to reach women specifically, Clinton said: "Well, I am," adding, "because what I experienced on the campaign trail starting in last January or February when I got out there was how strongly how many women and girls feel about this. There was this great outpouring of interest in the campaign and a desire to get involved."
She continued: "I guess I've been doing this long enough [that I can remember] when no campaign would have really done that except as an afterthought . . . it's exciting to see the role that women are playing in this campaign."
During several days of campaigning in Iowa this month, Clinton spoke to women, as a woman, as overtly as she ever has on the stump. When she discussed retirement savings, she put it in context for women, who dip in and out of the workforce more often than men and who rely more heavily on Social Security. She met a server at a Maid-Rite diner -- a single mother who raised two sons working two or three jobs at once -- and instantly the woman's story became a staple of Clinton's stump speech. At one point, she said she had been campaigning for president so long she could have had a baby.
At the Ames rally, Clinton described at length the types of voters who have touched her most on the trail.
Of the women in their 90s who approached her, she said: "When this started happening, I was so touched by it. As I meet them, I remember the woman who said to me, 'I'm 95 years old' as I was shaking her hand. She said, 'I was born before women could vote, but I'm going to live long enough to see a woman in the White House.' " The audience erupted in cheers.