Monday, May 20, 2013 | 12:43:01 PM CDT
Bookmark Us | Contact Us

Bookmark and Share Red and Blue

Can the Republicans Close the Gender Gap?

Apr 18, 2012

By Michael Krull and Arnie Arnesen

RED
 
 
By Michael Krull
 
At the outset, let me say this: I don’t believe there is a gender gap between the Democrats and Republicans; it is largely a canard.
 
Female voters are an important portion of the electorate and their voting interests and issues map largely follow the trends of the vast majority of Americans except for those issues typically labeled, “women’s issues.”  More on that in a moment.
 
In the upcoming November election, pocketbook issues are likely to be those which will resonate most fully with all voters – including women, who typically make the majority of pending decisions within households.  However, on these issues, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have failed across the board.  
 
When he entered office following the 2008 election, President Obama had broad support among the American people – who by-and-large wanted him to do well; we were in an economic crisis – and he had majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.  
 
The American people in 2008 and early 2009 were most concerned about jobs and the economy, and wanted Democrats to address these issues.  Instead of directly assisting the American people, President Obama and Congressional Democrats rewarded their allies in the Labor Union Movement by passing a $787 billion stimulus package aimed toward state and local governments and union-supported infrastructure projects (and later joked that “shovel-ready” jobs weren’t as “shovel-ready” as had been hoped); slapped unneeded regulations on the financial sector; and rammed through a healthcare overhaul.  
 
Yet, nearly four years later, the concerns over jobs and the economy shared by most Americans have not been addressed.  Even the loss of the House in the November 2010 elections didn’t wake up the White House or Congressional Democrats to the plight of the American people.  President Obama’s current budget is nothing but a positioning statement for the November election, and was soundly rejected by both houses in Congress – it received zero votes; not even one Democrat voted for it.  Add to that, the Democrat-controlled Senate has not passed a budget in more than 1,000 days.  
 
President Obama and Congressional Democrats have no real record to run on, so they will try their best to segment the electorate – to divide the American people into competing camps and pitting one against the other in an effort to cobble together enough support to win.  That is why Democrats are talking about women’s issues and advancing the notion of a Republican “War on Women,” evidenced by the Congressional hearings on women’s right to reproductive health, as well as other segmenting sideshows such as support for the aims and language of the Occupy Movement, and the recall election in Wisconsin.  
 
This is cynical and depressing, not uplifting.  This is not unifying leadership; it is divisive, disingenuous and dangerous.  
 
On the issue of the purported gender gap, people often point to official statistics.  But statistics can be manipulated to show what one wants to prove.  
 
Labor Department data show that in March 2012 there were 67.4 million employed male workers in the U.S., down 3.3 million since the recession began in December 2007.  The March data also show that there were 65.4 million employed female workers in the U.S., down 1.8 million since December 2007.  
 
In other words, over the entire course of the recession, the data show that male employment in the United States has declined 4.6%, while the female employment rate has fallen by 2.7%.
 
Enter politics: Mitt Romney last week stated that women have fared far worse than men during the Obama presidency, accounting for 92.3% of all unemployment since President Obama was sworn into office in January 2009.  While that is statistically true, it ignores the cycle of unemployment.
 
According to economists, in this, as in previous downturns, male-dominated sectors, such as construction and heavy manufacturing, are the first to let workers go – and are the first to hire back once there is an upturn in the economy.  In the later stages of an economic downturn support positions, like secretaries, clerical staff and healthcare workers, which are predominately women-dominated sectors, are let go.  These also tend to be the jobs that are hired back last.  It is also a fact that women generally take longer to reenter the workforce once they are unemployed; they have children, decide to stay at home and raise children, or go to college or vocational school at higher percentages than unemployed men.  
 
Again, data from the Labor Department show that since President Obama’s inauguration, male employment has fallen by roughly 57,000, while female employment has fallen by roughly 683,000.  Yet, as you can see from the data provided above, total female employment since the recession began has fallen 1.9% less than male employment.  The numbers since President Obama’s inauguration would lead you to a different conclusion: That there is a War on Women caused by the policies of President Obama and Democrats.  
 
If Republicans really wanted to be political, they could point to President Obama’s problem with women.  In 2008, the Obama campaign was roundly criticized for paying women employees of the campaign less than men - and far less than Republican John McCain paid women on his campaign.
 
This seems to be the case today as well.  The Washington Free Beacon searched through the publicly available salary information for the 2011 White House staff and found that female employees earned a median salary of $60,000, about 18% less than the median salary for males.  
 
There was even a Time Magazine article on this subject written by Amy Sullivan, which appeared in September 2011.  From the article: “Coverage in the Washington Post and a new book by Ron Suskind has focused attention on the frustration of Obama’s senior female advisors.  But the problem has been obvious almost since Obama took office.  And while the explanations so far have blamed members of the mostly-departed boys club – Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emanuel – Obama himself is responsible for a work atmosphere that marginalizes and ignores women…. Even at the dinner pushed for by top female staffers so they could air their grievances directly with Obama, his reaction – as told by Suskind – amounted to an apologetic shrug….”
 
So, despite there being room for improvement on both sides of the aisle when it comes to women’s workplace issues, why is there this perception that Republicans have mounted a “War on Women?”  It is the segmentation strategy employed by Democrats to discredit Republicans and drive a wedge between women and Republican officeholders.
 
The idea is that if Democrats make enough noise about the wedge issues that supposedly divide Americans, voters won’t notice that they don’t have a record on the issues that are really important to the long-term health of our country and have not actually put forth any plan to address these important issues.  
 
While the female vote is important for victory in the November elections, it is an appeal to all Americans – not a subset of Americans – that is the winning formula.  If Republicans take the bait and get into these arguments, we will lose.  
 

Republicans need to paint for voters a positive, optimistic and forward-looking agenda for America and not engage in the Balkanized world of the Democrats where each group is played off of the other.  There are simply too many real problems for us to tackle as a country to let ourselves be hoodwinked by these petty tactics and their narrow, divisive and largely irrelevant arguments.   

________

Michael Krull is a graduate of Luther College and Iowa State University. He has worked on disaster relief for the State Department, a major Washington, DC public relations and political consulting firm, and is currently working for American Solutions for Winning the Future. He is a member of the Council on Emerging National Security Affairs.   

BLUE

 

Can the Republicans close the gender gap?

 

By Arnie Arnesen

No. But you may be operating under a faulty premise. Are you sure they are Republicans?

The Republican Party of 2012 is one that Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon and even their demi-God, Reagan, would not recognize, which leads me to think that they are masquerading as Republicans.

How could the party of Lincoln, that fought for the unity of the Nation, freed the slaves, and sought racial equality be connected to the party of Romney, Ryan and West?

Romney has just rolled out a new campaign slogan: Obama isn’t working! Complete with website and banners. It appears Romney has decided to run on the one item he can consistently represent: his whiteness. The suggestion that our President is "not working" fits an ugly stereotype of blacks created by desperate bigots, and underscores Romney's lack of principles, values and accomplishments.

Paul Ryan, the fair-haired House Budget Committee Chair who claims that his Catholic faith helped him shape his budget proposal, which, by the way, 70 Catholic leaders described as “particularly cruel” to the most vulnerable. “A person’s faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private.... to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person?” (One can only assume that Ryan didn’t learn his lessons well or is distorting the teachings of his faith.)

Allen West, a Republican Congressman from Florida, recently responded to questions asked by a constituent at a town hall meeting about how many members of Congress were card carrying Marxists or international socialists? Allen didn't hesitate: "I believe it is about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party." (Sounds like a page out of the notorious demagogue, Joe McCarthy of the 1950s.)

How could the party of Roosevelt who believed that government had the right and the obligation to regulate “big business” to protect society recognize a corporate shill like Romney? Romney targets both the regulators and the regulations. In one recent campaign stop Mitt's mixed metaphor: ”regulators are always on the prowl...under President Obama, they are multiplying like proverbial rabbits" sounds odd, but it might suggest that Mitt is amenable to birth control, but only when it applies to "controlling" the number of public servants charged with protecting the Public Interest?

But Romney's definitive answer to Regulations, found on Page 61 of his economic plan where he proposes to cap the rate at which agencies could impose new regulations at zero, clearly tells you whom he "is" protecting and it isn’t us. Teddy Roosevelt must be rolling in his grave.

How could the party of Eisenhower who warned against the dangers of the military industrial complex or the party of Goldwater* who warned of the eroding barrier between government and religion relate to the “Catholic inspired” Ryan budget which shreds the international affairs budget (i.e. diplomacy and development), devastates the safety net, but, as William Kristol pointed out in the WSJ, restores national defense as the No.1 priority of the federal budget.

How could the party of Nixon, that established the EPA, recognize a “Republican” party that has introduced an unprecedented number of Bills to either block or weaken EPA regulations. Congressman Allen West got a standing ovation for his suggestion that Congress eviscerate the EPA budget at a Conservative Political Action Conference. Just a few days ago at the NRA convention of all places, Mitt managed to wax poetic against the Obama EPA and suggested that it interferes with personal freedom.

How could Reagan who raised taxes and worked with Democrats recognize a party that genuflects to Grover Norquist and his anti- tax pledge? As of this writing over 270 members of Congress (virtually every Republican) and Mitt Romney have signed Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge that guarantees that the Buffett Rule (that suggests the Rich should pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us) is dead on arrival, that no loopholes to the tax code will be closed, that no, nien, nada taxes will be raised in perpetuity and all handouts to big oil, coal, or agriculture will be sustained.

The "GOP Gap" of historic and party values is profound; the gender

gap is just another element in the sorry mix. This faux Republican party is wedded to an extreme right wing ideology that is anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-safety net, anti-public education, anti-contraceptives, anti-equal pay, anti-sustainability, anti-science, anti-investment (except in the bottom line of multinational corporations that invest abroad and warehouse their profits in places like the Cayman Islands), etc. There is no way that the party in 2012, masquerading as Republicans can repair the gender gap. Too many mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, caregivers, wives, nurses, nuns, teachers, bank tellers, waitresses, housekeepers (be they stay at home moms or hired help) will find more than one reason to reject them.

*("There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this Supreme Being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their positions 100%. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain; they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even angrier as a Legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.")

________

D. Arnie Arnesen is a radio and TV commentator based in New Hampshire. She has lectured at Harvard, Dartmouth, UNH, SNHU, Vermont Law School, St. Olaf and other colleges. She is a former NH Legislator and a former democratic nominee for Governor and Congress. Arnie has been a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics at Harvard and has trainied women who want to run for office throughout the United States and future NH Leaders. You can hear Arnie every Wednesday on Talk of Iowa on IowaPublicRadio.org and every Friday on the Dan Mitchell Show on WKBKam.com. politicalchowder@gmail.com  Don't miss Arnie's new radio station Monday - Friday 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST streaming live at: nhnewsviewsblues.org WNHN 94.7

* denotes a required field.
Add Comment
 
Name: *
E-mail:  
URL:  
Comments: *
 
 
© 2013 InsiderIowa.com. All Rights Reserved.