I Hope the Dems Keep Up that “War on Women” Thing
The President and his supporters were quite eager to talk up the supposed Republican “War on Women” last night, and Obama got a nice fat softball setup for it with the “wage-gap” question.
Here’s the thing; that conversation actually hurts the President, not Mitt Romney.
We ran a PocketTrial™ testing the impact that Paycheck “Fairness” Act (PFA) messages had on support for the PFA and support for the President (among independents and weak partisans only) for the Independent Women's Forum (run by my better half).
Most women had no idea what the PFA was, but when they heard both sides a large majority of Democratic women and even a lot of Republican women support it. So the Progressives win the issue.
But we all know that they’re most interested in hurting Republicans with it, not winning the issue itself. So what do they get from the fight politically?
It turns out the debate over the PFA reduces support for President Obama among women who voted for him in 2008 by 12-points, from 87 to 75 percent.
Not only that, but the debate also reduces support for ObamaCare and reduces positive perceptions of Obama’s economic plans.
Finally, we found that the best argument against the PFA is what Romney focused on last night; the economy. Don’t argue about their premises, just argue that the “cure” is far worse for women than the problem and that growing the economy, not more regulation and frivolous lawsuits, is the best way to help women in the workplace.
So, by all means, keep it up!
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: I Hope the Dems Keep Up that “War on Women” Thing
I figured Romney had a sound reason for focusing his answer as he did. Still, it's so frustrating to see what amounts to tacit acceptance of such an outright dishonest and persistent myth.
FYI, today I was discussing the debate with a couple of 14 year old students and was able to effectively debunk the myth of pay inequality to them in about 3 minutes. They had absolutely no problem whatsoever understanding and wondered why Mitt Romney didn't just explain it like I did.
But, as Dennis Prager might say, these high school sophomores have the advantage of not having attended grad school.
Re: I Hope the Dems Keep Up that “War on Women” Thing
Ha, yes . . . being indoctrinated in assumptions is no joke. Beyond that, though, I think a lot of women have run into problems themselves, real and imagined, and know others who have as well.
The wage-gap is a myth, but I think arguing against it too much might just sound to a lot of women as if you're trying to deny that there is any discrimination at all in the workplace. We're talking averages here, so it's quite possible for there to be positive and negative discrimination all over the place for both genders and have it even out in the end. But people tend to only see when they are getting the short end of the stick . . .
Apr '11
Re: I Hope the Dems Keep Up that “War on Women” Thing
Adam Schaeffer: Ha, yes . . . being indoctrinated in assumptions is no joke. Beyond that, though, I think a lot of women have run into problems themselves, real and imagined, and know others who have as well.
The wage-gap is a myth, but I think arguing against it too much might just sound to a lot of women as if you're trying to deny that there is any discrimination at all in the workplace. We're talking averages here, so it's quite possible for there to be positive and negative discrimination all over the place for both genders and have it even out in the end. But people tend to only see when they are getting the short end of the stick . . . · 11 hours ago
Excellent point. It could just set up a Bill Clinton type response of "Tell that to Sally Smith in Toledo who was passed over for promotion, or Mary Jones in...."