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Conservative women, just as fired up, are battling what they see as Democratic pandering that paints all women with the same brush. The conservative group Smart Girl Politics last month launched a "They Don't Speak for Us" campaign that includes a video focusing on unemployment rates and the cost of gas and groceries. ShePAC, a political action committee working on behalf of conservative women candidates, promises in another ad that "2012 won't be a war on women, it will be a war by women." In an opinion piece penned for CNN.com after the brouhaha over Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen's comment that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life," the women co-chairs of ShePAC said "more and more women like Ann Romney are standing up and speaking out. ... Those women aren't victims, they are fierce warriors who fight for their principles." For better or worse, the debate over gender politics has launched a new national dialogue that reaches beyond the campaign trail and cable networks. To see it, simply look to Colorado -- and a single day in the trenches. --- At the Equal Pay Day rally, Wanda Ramey recalled growing up in the `60s
-- hearing about friends who'd received illegal abortions, seeing firsthand the battle for an Equal Rights Amendment and, later, waging her own battles as a woman in a mostly male work environment. "Back in the `60s, we fought hard. And we didn't have Facebook. We didn't have the Internet," said Ramey, who supports Obama. "We're older now and we have the time to research, and we're not going to be led around anymore." As the equal pay protesters dispersed, a man orating about religion soon took to the pavement of the university commons. When marketing major Sasha Luinstra stopped to watch, she remarked that "I should get out there and preach." A male student standing next to her replied: "What are you going to preach about? Makeup?" Luinstra didn't bother responding. It's those kinds of comments, along with the many different statements about women that she has heard so far this campaign season, that both rile and baffle the 21 year old. How, for example, can Americans in 2012 still be debating the virtues of stay-at-home moms versus those who work? To Luinstra, it's a non-issue. She recalls her graphic designer mom in tears when she would drop her at day care. Her mother eventually quit and stayed home full time, and instilled in her daughter the idea that "I'm free to make any choice I want." Luinstra feels the same principle should apply to abortion. She has friends who are now parents but who have also terminated their pregnancies, and said she's grateful those women could choose for themselves what path to take. Over the summer, she plans to volunteer for Students for Obama. "He backs up my values," she said of the president. By evening, as a group called 9to5 gathered at a local bar to talk women's wage issues, another 30 or so men and women
-- members of the Denver chapter of the Coalition for a Conservative Majority
-- convened at the Hotel VQ for a panel discussion by five Republican women about the so-called war on women. These women -- a lawyer, a former options trader, a businesswoman who tracks government spending, a stay-at-home mom who started a conservative advocacy group and a legislative aide whose mother is a state lawmaker
-- discussed how conservatives could work to reach out to women voters, especially the independents who are key in Colorado. Several suggested a move away from the debate over contraception -- whether it's framed as a reproductive rights or a religious freedom issue. "Gas or groceries. That's the real war on women," said Lori Horn, 50, who co-founded the group R Block Party. "We have to feed our families. We have to decide whether we need to forgo a few things because we need to put gas in our cars. So take that contraception argument away from them, and come up with some ... different words about what the real war on women looks like for us." For Horn, a mother of two girls, discussions about contraception have become "noise," a distraction that could prove harmful to the Republican candidates she supports. "I'm all for birth control. I use it," she said in an interview. "Jobs and the economy, creating the security that families and single women need, that's the most important thing. I'm a powerful woman. ... I can take care of those other issues." Moderating the panel, lawyer Linda Hoover cited a March USA Today/Gallup poll of swing states, including Colorado, that showed women favoring Obama over Romney by 18 percentage points. "It's absolutely frightening how quickly, once they launched that (war) narrative ... the polling data changed. I'm hoping it was a short-term bounce, but let's not assume that," said Hoover, 60, who has been working voter registration booths to do her part in enticing more women voters. The women gathered on this night may know better than most the power of the gender vote. They saw it in action in 2010 when, despite sweeping GOP victories elsewhere, a Democrat edged out a tea party-backed candidate in Colorado's U.S. Senate race. Republican Ken Buck was targeted as "anti-woman" in advertisements and mailers
-- first for joking that voters should pick him over a female GOP primary opponent "because I don't wear high heels" and then for favoring a constitutional ban on abortion. (He had also opposed exceptions in cases of rape or incest.) In the end, exit polls showed that women voters went for the Democrat by 17 percentage points. That gender gap can make a significant difference in presidential elections as well. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, the number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. And, in every presidential election since 1980, a gender gap has been apparent
-- with a greater proportion of women choosing the Democratic candidate over the Republican. Come November, said Rutgers professor Carroll: "It's very likely that women's votes
-- whether they go strongly for Obama or whether Romney's able to minimize the gender gap
-- will make the difference." All across Denver, women themselves seemed to clearly recognize that. So did a few men. As the conservative panel began to wrap up, audience members took turns offering their take on how to win the war, and one unidentified man took the microphone to impart these thoughts: "We've had a lot of women's movements. I think soccer mom was the last ... but this election is the `economic woman.' What women want now are jobs for their husbands, jobs for themselves, jobs for their teenagers. ... It's the `economic woman' that's going to dominate this election. "And all you women have to get on board and all these men in here have to get on board, or we'll lose the argument." Horn, Hoover and the other women on hand that night believe firmly that the "war" is little more than political gamesmanship. But make no mistake: They're fighting, too. And as night fell and the ballroom emptied, they headed home, battle-ready.
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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