Pro-choice campaign strategies? Shock!

[Cross-posted at Femocracy.net]

Do you know what is a really important step to winning a tight election in a contentious election year? Motivating your base. Do you know who is an important part of the Democratic base? Liberal women.  Women overall lean much more to the Democrats than men – meaning elevating women’s rights, I would think, is pretty central to hanging on to votes. It’s difficult for me to remember this sometimes, seeing as how the Democratic Party on a national scale has not really been fighting for feminist issues lately. I remember riding an emotional high when the President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, only to have it dashed when the Democrats allowed health care reform to be hijacked by Bart Stupak, who help up health insurance for 30 million people because he felt abortion restrictions in the bill’s funding just weren’t strong enough. In fact, the Democrats made a concerted effort to court congressmen who didn’t care about women’s rights, while attempting to prevent more liberal wings of the party from running ads to pressure conservative members. I heard an awful lot of members of Congress arguing against abortion rights, while only a low levels muted lip service about women’s health care from the most progressive members. Which is probably why we need a New York Times article when Democrats use reproductive rights as a campaign issue.

The article, “Democrats in Tight Races Put Focus on Abortion Rights,” really only focuses on the Senate race in Colorado and briefly mentions an ad running for the New York governor’s race that shows women in a police lineup – which may be an extreme ad that causes a knee-jerk reaction, yet I believe is helpful because I don’t think most people conceptualize what criminalizing abortion could really look like. In Colorado, Michael Bennett, who was appointed to Ken Salazar’s vacated Senate seat, is now running against Tea Party-backed candidate Ken Buck on the Republican ticket. Once upon a time, Buck supported Colorado’s personhood ballot measure that ultimately failed but would have given every fetus legal rights from the moment of conception. For anyone that follows the logic of that to its natural conclusion, this could have had disastrous consequences for pregnant women who could lose their autonomy to preserve fetus “rights.” Of course, he “recently withdrew his endorsement” and “now takes no position” – most likely because he has to win a statewide race and appeal to a broader base of people, not because he actually changed his mind on this issue. Now Bennett is attempting to use this as a wedge issue to take the focus off economic issues – particularly since women tend to support him by 16 points, while men support Buck by 15 points.

I have mixed feelings about campaign tactics like this, and it’s mostly due to my disillusionment with Democrats at a national level as opposed to more localized individual candidates. As you may be aware, there’s a gender enthusiasm gap in the pre-midterm polls right now, with men a lot more fired up about the coming election and looking to vote for Republicans. If you would like some mansplaining on this, it’s because more men are losing their jobs and feeling angry because this is a threat to their very masculinity, whereas ladies work in more recession-proof jobs like health care and education, and, as my personal favorite explanation from pollster Doug Schoen:

“Fiscal conservatism appeals primarily and principally to men,” he said. “Women are more concerned about a social safety net and less impacted by the movement to fiscal conservatism/tea party.”

First of all, then why do so many news outlets make such a big deal about women who are getting politically active for the first time and forming local Tea Party chapters? Secondly, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume  he didn’t mean to come off sounding like my ladybrain isn’t motivated by “fiscal conservatism.” I just happen to have different ideas about fiscal conservatism – that, for example, budget deficit reduction is best undertaken by spending less and taxing more until we’re back on track, but it’s hard to follow these principle after we became financially overextended in two wars while Bush handed $1 trillion in tax cuts to mostly wealthy people. I also happen to think we should expand the social safety net BECAUSE of what we’ve seen in this recession, and that austerity measures being touted as “fiscally conservative” right now are just going to make the recovery much longer and more painful. You see how some of us ladies can take complex positions on policy issues?

But my personal gender-based enthusiasm gap is coming from the fact that Democrats seem unwilling to push for feminist issues that are central to my ideology – unless they see it as a smart campaign strategy. Remember how we were excited about the possibility we might not have to shell out money every month for birth control pills? Well that feels like a pipe dream now that Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius decided it will take a couple years of “study” to decide if birth control is really “preventative,” so no free birth control until at least 2012 or 2013. Clearly, it’s not obvious that birth control pills prevent pregnancy, which carries its own health complications and expenses, not to mention that of the ensuing child. To me, free birth control felt like a sensible response to Congress basically deciding insurance shouldn’t cover abortions a la Bart Stupak and Co., but the Democrats couldn’t even stand up for THAT. Additionally, the Paycheck Fairness Act – which would prevent repercussions on employees who divulge salaries to coworkers, thought to be an important instrument against the gender-based wage gap – has been languishing in the Senate and dying a quiet death for over a year now. Oh wait – now that midterm races are heating up, the Democrats might try to revive it to remind women that they matter (electorally). So to sum up, women’s issues are of the utmost importance…when an election is coming and they remember women make up half the population. Got it.

At the same time, even when staying home on Election Day seems appealing as a political statement, I know this would be even more damaging. Even though the Tea Party and now the Republican Party insist that they only want to focus on the economy and jobs, I am not so naive. Though the Tea Party only wants to focus on deficit reduction and insist social issues are not their priority, I don’t think this is because they lack a socially conservative layer – I think they’re just trying on the “fiscal conservatism!” outfit for a while. If they’re elected, I think they’ll behave how Republican typically behave as of  late – trying to deny women reproductive rights, and arguing they shouldn’t have workplace protections because it interferes with free-market protections or something.  They’re the conservatives of old dressed up in a new way, complete with three-cornered hats, catchy slogans, and a dash of populist rage. That definitely doesn’t appeal to me either. But I’d be more enthusiastic about the Democratic Party if they focused on women’s rights all year round – as opposed to a seasonal goody-bag to galvanize lady voters for electioneering purposes. And a further note to Democrats: Telling your base things like “quit whining” when it comes to important issues is counterproductive. I’m convinced that women’s rights are not a trivial matter in politics – and telling us to quit whining about these rights is a pretty clear demonstration of the patriarchy that so many people are trying to insist no longer exists.