Edwards a Dud
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| Wed, 08-11-2004 - 11:02pm |
Not even The Fresh-faced One With Good Hair can get liberal women to the voting booth.
http://nationalreview.com/comment/andres200408110858.asp
'Recent polling data adds some texture to the Boston Blip, suggesting that the conventional wisdom about how John Edwards would help the ticket was wrong as well — especially how women would respond to Kerry's choice of the South Carolina senator as his running mate. Contrary to pundit predictions, John Edwards didn't provide much of a boost at all with women voters and some evidence suggests his selection may have even helped more with Democratic men.
The Boston Herald story by Dave Wedge on July 8 summed up what many in the political class were thinking at the time: "Women Expected to Swoon Over Veep's Sex Appeal," the headline read. Or as Liz Sporkin, assistant managing editor of People magazine said in the same story, "He's easy on the eyes and he's a good person." UPI Senior News Analyst Martin Sieff echoed a similar sentiment in a story on July 6, "Edwards is young looking, handsome and attractive to young voters in general and to women voters in particular."
Recent polling data, however, raises some interesting questions about the real impact of the Edwards pick among women. My research, conducted after the VP selection, but before the Democratic convention (AMR national poll conducted July 15-18, 800 registered voters with 3.5 percent margin of error) asked voters if the Edwards pick made them "more likely, less likely or had no impact" on their decision to vote for Kerry.
Overall, about 1 in 5 voters (21 percent) said the Edwards choice made them more likely to choose Kerry (68 percent said it had no impact, 9 percent said it made them less likely). No differences existed between men and women or "independents" among all voters on this question. But when I analyzed Democrats separately some interesting and unexpected patterns emerged.
First, Democratic men were more moved by the Edwards pick than Democratic women. 41 percent of Democratic men said picking Edwards made them more likely to vote for Kerry, while only 32 percent of Democratic women said the VP pick had a positive impact on their vote choice.
Second, on the key question of who was more qualified to step into the role of president — Senator Edwards or Vice President Cheney — Democratic women demonstrated a lot more skepticism about their candidate than Republican women did about Mr. Cheney. Fully 24 percent of Democratic women thought Cheney was more qualified to be president while only 10 percent of Republican women thought Edwards was more qualified.
Finally, I also asked voters some questions to measure views on popularity, such as "who do you want your kids to grow up and be like?" or "who would you rather spend an hour with?" Again, despite pundits' view that Edwards would excel in these areas with female voters, no significant gender differences existed in either the overall sample or among Democrats.
Democratic women continue to exhibit some nagging concerns about the Kerry-Edwards ticket. I suspect it has something to do with ambivalence and worry about how they would handle national security and the war on terror (For example, nearly 90 percent of Republican women believe President Bush would keep the country safer, while 68 percent of Democratic women believe John Kerry would do so). So far, despite the predicted swoon, Senator Edwards has apparently not boosted the ticket with women in these areas — good hair and big smiles have not ameliorated their concerns.
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Renee ~~~
