Right now, she’s leaning towards U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). But ever since his opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as his running mate, her choice has become more complicated.
“It’s really difficult,” said Pascual, a nurse who works in Georgetown and lives in Arlington. “As a woman, you want to be able to support someone of the female gender in coming to such a high stature in American politics. But I just disagree with her on so many things.”
Pascual is exactly the kind of voter Democrats are working hard to retain after McCain’s choice of Palin recalibrated the race. Last week, a group of Democratic senators gathered at Obama’s campaign office in Arlington to reaffirm their party’s commitment to issues that are important to female voters.
“You have a candidate for vice president who is worried about banning books in a library and then you’ve got a candidate for president who is focused on early childhood education,” U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said. “Most women I’ve talked to think that they’d rather have a candidate who is focused on early childhood education.”
“John McCain did not support the Equal Pay Act and Barack Obama has been a leader on the Equal Pay Act,” U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said. “In the end, this isn’t about gender. It’s about an agenda.”
VIRGINIA is a swing state in this year’s election. A poll conducted by polling firm SurveyUSA on Sept. 7 showed that McCain and Obama are in a virtual dead heat in the state.
Nationally, the Republican ticket has seen a surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention earlier this month. If a large number of female voters choose McCain over Obama, it could determine the outcome in a battleground state like Virginia.
Megan Beyer, the head of Virginia Women For Obama, thinks that the McCain campaign’s success in recent weeks is due to the public’s fascination with the relatively unknown Palin. “People understand that Palin is a woman and that is really all they understand,” Beyer said. “They haven’t had an opportunity to find out what she stands for.”
Once Palin becomes more widely known, McCain’s polling numbers will return to pre-convention levels, McCaskill said. “[Republicans] have a candidate who is a heartbeat away from the presidency that no one’s been able to ask questions of,” she said. “I think she will have to answer some questions that the majority of American women are not going to like the answers. When they hear those answers, it will make a big difference in the polling.”
To try to appeal to female voters, the Obama campaign has been hosting weekly women’s nights at its field offices throughout Virginia, Beyer said. Women are encouraged to come to the field offices on Wednesday nights and talk about their concerns and what they are looking for in a presidential candidate.
Beyer, the wife of former Virginia Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, also said that the Obama campaign has been hosting a series of coffees for women ever since Obama was competing against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the primary race.
THE ECONOMY is the most important issue to women, Beyer said, and female voters will choose a candidate that can address their concerns about the economy.
“The economy has gotten so much worse that you can hardly afford to do errands and you can hardly afford to pay for the gas to do errands,” she said. “[Women] want to see whether this candidate represents the policies that they consider to be family friendly and whether they’ll help their economic situation … Women are smarter than voting for someone just because they’re a woman.”
Arlington County Commissioner of Revenue Ingrid Morroy (D) said that she resents McCain’s use of Palin to try to appeal to women. “It’s rather offensive to see,” Morroy, an early Obama supporter, said. “I really got offended when he introduced her as ‘Isn’t she marvelous?’ [at the convention]. I don’t think he would do that if he had a male vice presidential candidate.”
Morroy also said that the public will turn against Palin after more information about her comes out. “Once we find out the truth behind the Republican vice presidential candidate, I think that Barack Obama will not have any problems attracting women,” she said. “I don’t think that women are going to vote for the Republican ticket just because [Palin is] a woman.”
IN A RANDOM sampling of female voters at the Central Library in Arlington last week, opinions were mixed on Palin and how her placement on the Republican ticket will affect the outcome of the race.
Ashley Mullins, a student at the Langston High School Continuation program in Arlington, said that said that she thought Palin’s personal experiences with her large family would make her a great vice president.
But despite this, Mullins will be casting her ballot for Obama in November. She likes his stances on health care and education, the two issues that are most important to her, and she said that she makes her decision on whom to vote for based on who’s at the top of the ticket.
Ashley Laganga, a law student who lives in Arlington, was also unaffected by McCain’s choice of Palin. “It doesn’t really matter to me,” she said.
Laganga has a libertarian outlook on public policy so she admired Palin’s limited government approach in Alaska. But she doubted that Palin would have much of an impact on McCain’s policies and said that she was still undecided as to whom she would vote for.
Cynthia Walsh, a human resources recruiter with two elementary-age children, is definitely not undecided. She’s been behind McCain since he clinched the nomination earlier this year and the addition of Palin to the ticket didn’t cause her to waver.
Walsh has been disturbed by Palin’s treatment in the media and said that there’s a “definite double standard” in how male politicians are portrayed compared to their female counterparts. “What the media is doing is nit picking on her,” Walsh said. “I saw that with Hillary too. They’re really hard on the women in a different way than men. I think women are noticing that.”
But ultimately, Walsh said, what this election boils down to is the question of which candidate is best for the country as it moves forward. “Who’s going to take us from here?” she asked. “We’re not in the best spot right now, sadly.”
