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Poll says women trust Obama to look out for them

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor December 3, 2008 02:13 PM

Barack Obama won the presidency, in part, by growing the gender gap for Democratic presidential candidates.

And a new poll out today shows he has a deep reservoir of goodwill among women as he prepares to start his administration.

The survey conducted for Lifetime networks found that 60 percent of women said they trust Obama to represent them and the values they hold "a great deal" or "somewhat." Also, 35 percent of women said Obama would address the needs of women if he tackles family and work-life balance issues, while 22 percent said they will hold him accountable based on how he handles the economy, which 71 percent said is the top priority, while 10 percent said they will base their review of the Obama administration on whether he deals with pay equity.

According to exit polls, women made up 53 percent of voters nationwide on Nov. 4, and Obama won among them 56 percent to 43 percent.

The poll released today was conducted by WomanTrend and Lake Research Nov. 21-24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Among other findings:

-- 67 percent said that Obama should not consider gender when picking his cabinet and should focus just on qualifications, while 27 percent said he should try to appoint an equal number of women and men. Also, 71 percent support the nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state -- and 58 percent said that they prefer her to be in that job rather than president, while 18 percent said they prefer her to be commander in chief.

-- 49 percent said they would like to see Michelle Obama get involved in a few issues, while 38 percent say she should focus on being a wife and mother.

-- 93 percent said that the candidacies of Sarah Palin and Clinton should encourage more women to run for office and 79 percent said their experiences made running for office more appealing.

-- Only 9 percent of women said they felt obligated to vote for Palin because she is a woman. However, among McCain-Palin voters, 17 percent said they partly wanted to elect the first female vice president.

Despite the high-profile selection of Clinton as secretary of state, a women's advocacy group today tweaked Obama for picking seven men and three women so far for the 21 cabinet-level positions -- a pace it said was behind former Presidents Clinton and Bush and possibly even George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.

“We’re in the third inning and the men’s team is beating the women 70 percent-30 percent It looks like a real outside chance for the women of this country to catch up to the 1990s when President Clinton had 47 percent women in his first cabinet,” Amy Siskind, co-founder of The New Agenda, said in a statement.

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This is amazing and shows just how misinformed the average american voter is. Did anybody see the study during the campaign....it was laid out in simple mathematics that female staffers in Obama's senate office were paid an average of 8000 dollars less than their male colleagues. In Sen. Mccain's office the women's average pay was 4800 dollars more and he had more women in top positions than Obama.

If only people could look at facts before making ignorant votes we could have saved this country

Posted by Randy December 3, 08 03:13 PM
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Who cares how many men and women are in the cabinet? As long as they can do their job and do it well then that's all that should matter. These neo nazi feminists need to get a life!

Posted by DI$CO December 3, 08 03:42 PM
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As a women, I can state that women are STUPID to trust Obama to look out for them,

Posted by kat December 3, 08 03:50 PM
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Let's see, can anyone definitively say that there are an equal number of men and women in seasoned leadership roles at an enterprise executive level, which I imagine is the first level of qualification for a cabinet position. I was fairly impressed with the resume of the Governor of Arizona, chosen by Obama as the DHS head. It seems to me that there simply aren't many intelligent, thoughtful warriors out there who are as capable of confronting the status quo while seeking expert opinion high wide as that lady. Clinton intelligence and International knowledge is well known, too. Are you all saying these ladies are typical examples of available women leadership?

Posted by Satya Newday December 4, 08 12:17 AM
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Kat, if women are stupid ..... should that not include you?

look people the election is over, love him or hate him he won, 69 million people voted for him, 66% of his voters are white just like America and 34% are minority

Hispanics+ blacks+ asians+ others.
in 4 years many McCain voters will die and new Obama voters will be registered ..


Posted by to commenter # 3, with love December 4, 08 11:16 AM
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I trust him to look out for me far more that Goober did, and way more than McSain or crazy Palin ever would have. As an american first I think that anyone who has any experience or qualifications to help our country to be better shoul step up and represent themself. Now is the time for us to leave all the pettyness behind and put our country first. McSain and Sarah lost this election because they allowed their advisers to promt him to go negative. They spent so much time talking about the other guy and not representing their vision and ideas more.

Posted by obamacratic December 4, 08 01:42 PM
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Repeal the 19th amendment!

Posted by Beagle914 December 6, 08 12:12 PM
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I certainly don't expect Obama to necessarily be a "champion" for women. I voted for him, reluctantly, I might add, but as an ardent Hillary supporter, I felt obligated to, especially after Hillary gave such an adamant plea for his election victory. It was Hillary, certainly not Obama, who made the eradication of breast cancer a goal of hers. In addition, as an earlier poster correctly stated, Obama paid his women staffers "less" than the males. Ironically, McCain did the opposite. hmmmm.....Where's the respect?!?! Obama is just part of the "old boys club". No surprise.

Posted by kmb8 December 7, 08 01:03 PM
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