WP: Clinton Team Turns Iowa Focus to Women

[BeyondGeography]

By Shailagh Murray and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 8, 2007; Page A01

DES MOINES -- Seeking to steady her campaign in Iowa, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will bring a wave of prominent women to blanket the state and target female voters in the final weeks before its first-in-the-nation caucuses.

..."It's obvious that Obama has made some inroads with women," said one senior Clinton adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The campaign, the adviser said, is responding with new television advertisements, additional paid calls and new mailers targeting women.

...Women represent six out of 10 likely voters in the Democratic caucuses, according to the most recent Des Moines Register survey. They are about evenly split between Obama and Clinton, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in mid-November. Among women likely to vote in the Jan. 3 Democratic contest, 32 percent supported Obama, 31 supported Clinton and 19 percent supported Edwards.

...Perhaps most worrisome for Clinton is the possibility that women are looking for more than experience or promises to mend gender-based inequities such as wage disparity. The group Women's Voices Women Vote, which targets the broad category of unmarried women who constitute nearly half the female electorate, just completed a survey that shows women to be motivated by Clinton's candidacy but more driven by a desire to bring about change -- which would appear to mesh with the Obama message. "Their intensity around that is much greater," said Page S. Gardner, founder of the nonpartisan group. "They have a desire to get out and change the way this country is governed. That's the number one goal. Their desire for change and their desire to participate in that change -- we have never seen numbers like this."

Ruth Lux, 59, a medical secretary in Carroll, should be a prime Clinton voter. And for a time, she was. "When Bill Clinton was president, I couldn't wait until she ran," Lux said. But the intense campaign in Iowa has changed her mind. She now thinks Clinton cannot win nationally, and perhaps should not."Electability is a big issue. She's polarizing," said Lux, who favors Obama. "I just think Obama has broad appeal to independents and some Republicans. I think he's viewed as more conciliatory and a bridge builder and he can cross the blue-red divide."

But Lux's move away from Clinton brings her no joy. "I'm actually surprised at myself that I'm not wholeheartedly supporting Hillary," Lux said. "It grieves me as a woman."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/07/AR2007120702583.html

[ClarkUSA]

1. I like this part...

Senior Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand argued that the Clinton logic is wrong, because it is based on "the assumption that women voters are
going to support Hillary Clinton because she's a woman. That's not how voters make up their minds."

<snip>

"It would be wonderful to have a woman in the White House. It's been way too long," said Ferol Menzel, vice president for academic affairs at
Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

But perhaps Clinton is not the right woman, Menzel added. "We certainly know there's an animosity toward the Clintons that will probably be
a factor," she said. "Which is a shame, because she's a bright woman and could do the job. But I really want a Democrat to be elected."

Heh... Hillary is going to counter Oprah with her mother. This weekend should be interesting.