“Women Love with Their Ears”: Obama Must Win Back the Sympathy of Female Voters

Democrat Barack Obama must win back the sympathy of American women. Without their support he can hardly hope for victory in the November elections. In the shared opinion of local political analysts, this is one of the current president’s main tasks, not only in the upcoming round of electoral debates, but during the entire three weeks that remain until voting.

For the U.S., the key role of the female electorate is politically self-evident. In 2010 there were around 157 million women and 152 million men. Women live longer; there are about twice as many women aged 85 or older than there are men. Besides, they vote more often.

In 2008 Obama won the presidential election for the most part thanks to the fairer sex, who gave him preference over Republican John McCain with an advantage of 13 percent of the vote. Amongst men, his advantage made up only about 1 percent.

In the current preliminary cycle, as well, American women initially by far preferred Obama to the candidate of the Republican opposition, Mitt Romney. In the spring, the current president was still ahead of his opponent in key “swing” states in terms of popularity among his fellow countrywomen by approximately 20 percent.

But recently his advantage has begun to fade, and after his first extremely unsuccessful round of electoral debates it has completely come to naught. On Tuesday, USA Today published the results of a new survey, conducted jointly with the Gallup Organization. It revealed that Romney was leading among likely voters in key states with an advantage of 4 percent of the votes —mainly because, this time, female sympathies were divided almost equally (49 percent for Obama, 48 percent for Romney).

Of course, Obama’s campaign office immediately questioned this information. According to them, while selecting likely voters the organizers of the survey gave the Republican voters too many “odds” (it is known that Republicans are more disciplined when it comes to elections, which is why there should be more of them in the sampling). However, in response Gallup declared that judging by the results of the 2004 and 2008 elections, its model is more likely skewed in favor of the Democrats.

Whatever the case, even American sociologists close to the party in power admit that women have begun to warm up to Romney, whom at first they could not stand. In many ways this is thanks to him: In the first round of debates he looked not like a soulless monster, as he is sometimes portrayed in negative political advertising, but like a normal human being —trustworthy, polite and smiling. Many American women were impressed by his ability to listen to his interlocutor, something Obama did not shine at.

As to the candidates’ political programs, according to the same survey by USA Today the most important matter for women is the right to be in charge of their own bodies, including the right to an abortion, followed by other economic and medical issues. In his political career, Romney has previously declared himself both for women’s “right to choose,” as well as — quite recently —categorically against abortions. Nowadays, he prefers simply to make clear that this issue is not a topical one for him, though it is well known that in the case of a victory, he will have to pay political debts to the conservatives.

On a number of economic issues Romney is leading in the eyes of the voters, including women. In fact this does not make much sense, because contrary to Obama, he is in principle advocating for minimizing the role of the government in economy and for reducing socio-economic programs. Meanwhile, American women are particularly interested in such programs: according to the main public organizations, there are currently around 55 million single women in the U.S., many of who are raising children on their own. In 2010 the average salary of a single mother in the U.S. came to about $24,500 versus $77,700 for a married couple.

In 2008, 70 percent of single American women gave Obama their vote. Now, in addition, they are for the most part offended by Romney’s recent public statement that 47 percent of the country’s population are spongers unable to take care of themselves and in need of help. They think — and have reason to — that the Republican had them in mind particularly.

But despite all this, Obama would be highly reckless to think that he has the votes of these people in his pocket. True, some American women resort to public assistance programs, but at the same time they mainly vote for Republicans, adhering to the principle that “it is better to teach a man how to fish than feed him free fish.”

As a matter of fact, not only Romney would readily agree with this, but Obama as well. Americans are taught from a young age to count only on themselves and their strengths, and not on the “good uncle” from the social security department. In the current race, the Republican constantly uses this propagandist cliché and it works for him, though he is often unable to clearly explain exactly how he is planning to carry out his loud pre-election promises.

The Democrat points this out and for his part emphasizes that he himself does not lie. They say that it is unbecoming for the current president to make irresponsible promises. This is of course true, but, according to a range of experts, Obama lost the first round of debates exactly because he acted like a president, and not like a candidate.”

And candidates are meant to secure the voters’ reciprocity. In light of that, it is surely not a sin to keep in mind that, as they say in both Russia and the U.S., “women love with their ears.”