In casting their family values net for women`s votes, the Bush-Quayle team has convinced Mary Jo Ely. But they still have a problem with Vicki Andreat. And there are lots of Vicki Andreats out there.
In a year when women could decide the presidential election, the Republican team, on the evidence of the themes played over and over at the GOP National Convention here last week, has decided to try to shore up its base by appealing to women like Ely-a volunteer campaign worker from St. Louis who has one child and has never been on a payroll.
Barbara Bush and Marilyn Quayle made perfunctory bows to working women in their speeches, but mostly they talked about how fulfilling full-time motherhood has been for them. That sets some working mothers` teeth on edge, especially those for whom staying home is not an economic option, as it is for Bush and Quayle.
Andreat is one of those. She`s been married for 18 years and she`s no radical. But she`s no stay-at-home mom. She works full time in a Houston bookstore, goes to a community college, writes occasionally for a magazine to make a little more money and has a teenage child.
”They (the Republicans) are coming on a little strong with the family stuff,” said Andreat, wending her way through dozens of Republican souvenir stands to get to her job in the bookstore`s booth at the convention. ”There are all kinds of families-single-parent families, working families.”
It`s those working families, especially working women, on which the 1992 election may turn. The 1990 census showed that 62 percent of the women in the U.S. work for pay, compared to 78 percent of men. In families with two parents at home, 54 percent have two wage earners.
It may be a coincidence that more people tuned into the Tuesday night rerun of the network television show ”Roseanne”-a wisecracking comedy about a blue collar family-than watched network coverage of the convention.
Whatever the reason, the popularity of the television program, in which Roseanne works at a lunch counter and her driveway-paving husband is sometimes unemployed, shows it touches a responsive chord with a lot of Americans.
And so far the Democratic ticket of Bill Clinton and Al Gore seems to appeal to working women.
A Houston Chronicle-Hotline poll taken during the GOP convention showed that 50 percent of employed women favor Clinton, while only 38 percent favor Bush. Women in general broke down 47 percent to 43 percent for Clinton, while men split almost in half-46 percent for Clinton, 45 percent for Bush. The rest were undecided.
That`s not good news for the Bush-Quayle team, especially since they chose Barbara Bush and Marilyn Quayle as speakers while ignoring many professional Republican women such as Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Rep. Connie Morella of Maryland.
And there`s some evidence that the Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton as something of a radical feminist who is career-oriented and doesn`t know how to bake cookies could backfire. The Chronicle-Hotline poll showed a bare majority of voters, 51 percent, said they do not believe Clinton`s public statements and writings are relevant to her husband`s presidential bid.
Andreat, 36, hasn`t settled for certain on her presidential pick, but the other issues that are important to her don`t seem to be breaking Bush`s way. She`s for abortion rights, like a majority of women, while Bush is not.
Overall, Andreat, who grew up in East St. Louis, thinks the economy is the most important issue. She, like much of the country according to the polls, remains unconvinced that Bush can turn the economy around and bring about more jobs for either two-working-parent families or those where only one parent works.
Bush, evoking the ”family values” theme early last week, maintained that most families want to be ”more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons,” comparing the 1970s TV show about a family in the Depression to the `90s irreverent animated sitcom. Bush may or may not have liked the wisecracking Bart`s comeback, but it was all about family values.
”Hey, we`re just like the Waltons,” Bart said in Thursday`s show.
”Both families spend a lot of time praying for the end of the Depression.”
With so many women mentioning the economy as the No. 1 campaign issue this year, it`s pretty hard to separate the ”women`s issues,” from the
”men`s issues.” But in some ways a stagnant economy hits women harder. Many make less money than men, and they are more likely to hold part-time jobs-the kind that frequently get cut when times get tough.
At the Republican convention four years ago, Bush brought many women into the GOP fold with his appeal for a ”kinder and gentler” nation.
Many of those same women have drifted away, either over the abortion issue, the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court or because of the economic hard times.
”He closed the gender gap four years ago on his kinder and gentler,”
said Jane Danowitz, executive director of the bipartisan Women`s Campaign Fund, which raises money for women candidates. ”The only kind thing this year has been Barbara Bush.”
