Bush seen struggling for women's vote

CLEVELAND -- President Bush's political handlers would sleep a lot easier at night if all women were like the ones who crowded into a ballroom at the Cleveland Convention Center yesterday and gave him several standing ovations as he called for reducing government regulation and making his tax cuts permanent.

"As the husband of Laura and the son of Barbara, I feel right at home," Bush told the audience, which was participating in a forum on women's entrepreneurship in the 21st century.

The audience of business owners may have liked what they heard. But in general, women have been far less receptive to Bush's message.

Adding a prescription drug benefit and tightening school standards in his No Child Left Behind bill were supposed to burnish Bush's image as a leader with cross-party appeal who can draw major support from women.

So far, however, that hasn't happened.

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, has fared much better than Bush among women as this campaign season heats up: The same polls that show Bush trailing Kerry indicate that the respondents prefer the Democrats' positions on health care and education, despite the administration's high-profile changes in those areas.

Women have tended to be more concerned than men about health care and education, and GOP presidential candidates -- including Bush in 2000 -- have overcome deficits in support from women before. But polling specialists say that the initiatives that would have given Bush the best chance to win more female support have fallen flat, making it more important than ever for him to solidify his backing among men.

"For Bush to get reelected this fall, he has to do particularly well among men and do well enough among women to neutralize their support for Kerry," said Frank Newport, president of the Gallup Poll.

The Bush-Cheney campaign is already working on both of those fronts. Bush has courted so-called NASCAR dads in Florida, flying to the Daytona 500 on Air Force One last month, and shook hands with cowboys at a Texas rodeo on Monday.

First lady Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, have sought to appeal to women.

Laura Bush appeared last week in the first wave of Bush-Cheney campaign ads, sitting next to her husband with an approving smile as he says he knows "exactly where I want to take the country." And on Monday, the same day the president went to the rodeo, his wife addressed the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans, saying she joined a campaign to raise awareness "when I heard that heart disease is the number one cause of death among women."

Lynne Cheney is scheduled to talk to Virginia elementary school students today about Dolley Madison as part of Women's History Month. Judging from current polls, the challenge the Bush-Cheney campaign faces in getting the right mix of support could be difficult.

CNN exit polling indicated that only 43 percent of women voted for Bush in 2000, but he balanced that by getting 53 percent of the vote from men. A Gallup/USA Today/CNN poll released on Monday, however, suggested that Kerry has erased Bush's advantage among men and held on to the support of most women. Among men, Bush and Kerry were tied with 47 percent support; women preferred Kerry by 53 percent to 43 percent.

Respondents also said Kerry would do a better job on health care, where he was 19 percentage points ahead of Bush, and education, where he was four points ahead. Celinda Lake, a Democratic political strategist, said she's not surprised that Bush has not been able to get more support from women on those issues.

"Older women don't like the prescription drug plan, and younger women don't like the No Child Left Behind legislation," Lake said. In surveys, older voters have said the drug plan is too complicated. Meanwhile, Democrats have attacked No Child Left Behind for imposing burdens on schools without adding sufficient funds to improve instruction.

The Bush-Cheney campaign insists that both the drug benefit and the education bill eventually will benefit the president.

"When it comes to reforming something, at first it's going to result in people defending the status quo," said spokesman Kevin Madden. "What voters look for is results on the issue of education and the president can point to results." For now, polling specialists say, Democratic attacks on Bush's initiatives have erased any bump in support Bush might have gotten from them.

Still, Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Center poll, said Bush has enough time to chip away at Kerry's support among women. And Sarah Brewer, associate director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington, D.C., noted that Bush has not really begun to make his case about his education and prescription drug initiatives.

Democratic complaints about the education bill could be countered by ads backing it, she said. And complaints about pharmaceutical companies getting big money from Bush's Medicare bill could also fall flat if people come to believe the law would help their loved ones.

Said Brewer: "Just because drug companies are getting a lot of money, if Grandma is getting medicine, that complaint might matter less."