While the USA TODAY headline reads “Swing States Poll: A shift by women puts Obama in lead,” if the poll is accurate, there is in fact a major political split between men and women, and it isn’t explained away by the latest, ridiculous, “Republican war on women” meme. It may come down to a basic, stubborn divergence in political philosophy:
While women typically are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats than men are, that difference widens to a chasm in the USA TODAY poll. By 41%-24%, women call themselves Democrats; men by 27%-25% say they’re Republicans.
Numbers like that IMO aren’t explained away by the recent Sandra Fluke / Rush Limbaugh flap or the phony contraception debate. Might the problem be that women in general are more in favor of big government than men? If that’s the case, the problem is unlikely to go away.
What I would like to see are polls explaining what it is that makes some women Republicans. Might it be that they have wised up and have come to realize that taxation adversely affects women?
Do the majority of women in fact still buy into the con that the state is a de facto husband that will take care of them? If that’s the case, how long will it take them to realize that it’s time for a divorce?
Imagine (only for the sake of argument, of course) that Republicans had a similar problem with the youth vote. All they would need to do is explain that the Democrats want to suck their lungs out and the Republicans don’t, and cite Obamacare as an example of how they want young taxpayers to pay for their elders. And imagine further that instead of doing that, they let the Democrats paint themselves as the Party That Wants To Give, and the Republicans as The Party That Wants To Take Away!
Such a “strategy” would lose. Fortunately, the Republicans are too smart to let that happen, right?
AFTERTHOUGHT: To put it bluntly, I should point out that based on my relatively recent experience, what keeps so many women and young people (especially those who work and have common sense) from supporting Republicans is that they are turned off by social conservatism, especially the shrill variety. And unlike yours truly, they don’t have the ability to take a broader, more patient view of things. So they hold their nose and vote Democrat.
Comments
6 responses to “Chasm?”
The Republicans could easily defeat the Democrats if they took the lead in ending Drug Prohibition.
Government has been steadily expanding ever since women got the vote.
Just sayin’.
“Might the problem be that women in general are more in favor of big government than men?”
What makes you think Republicans are less in favor of big government than Democrats? 😉
I agree with Joshua. Republicans want a different big government and they want to be in charge of it.
I think young people could be drawn to the more libertarian sorts in the Republican party.
A government that leaves us alone would be very attractive to many people, but probably not women that want a sugar daddy. I would be curious to see how the Democrats poll with women that already have a husband.
Consider that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are massive income transfers from men to women. Then add in divorce law and insurance regulation. Looks to me like women are being economically rational. Men, not so much.
The reason for the social conservatism is that they can afford that luxury. They believe (and rightly, I think) that egalitarianism, the core of the Left’s philosophy, is so unpopular as policy that enough people will vote Republican anyway. What I’d have liked to see in the poll would be gender splits of how people actually vote most of the time, regardless of whether they’re willing to belong to the party or not.