Gender Gap Hits Gop Where It Hurts Party Leaders Recognize They Will Lose Majorities If The Trend Continues

Jennifer Dunn, the highest ranking woman in Congress, for years has watched and worried as women flock to the Democratic Party.

Now, with the blessings of House Republican leadership, the Washington Representative hopes to do something about it, putting “a softer edge on the conservative message.”

The gender gap has become a “gender canyon” for Republicans, pollsters say.

The GOP could lose its majorities in both Washingtons unless the party can figure out some answers, state Chairman Dale Foreman said. While Dunn works on a national strategy, Foreman has quietly appointed a state counterpart and GOP legislative leaders are paying close attention.

Democrats, who have a gender gap of their own with men, say the Republicans have only themselves to blame for their problems with women. The GOP agenda - anti-abortion and tough on social “safety net” programs and environmental-protection budgets - scares many women, state party chairman Paul Berendt said.

Dunn and Foreman don’t buy that. They say the basic conservative thrust - smaller, cheaper, less-controlling central government - shouldn’t turn women off. But they concede that the gender gap is deepening. In separate interviews, the two Republican leaders said attention must be paid both to the substance and to how the message is being communicated.

It’s hard to overstate the issue’s importance to the GOP effort to nail down majority status, they say.

“We recognize it’s a big problem, a double-digit problem,” Foreman said. “We have failed to adequately address education and the environment in many women’s minds and I recognize we must have a plan in order to attract women voters.

“We are working very hard on this. We’d be foolish not to.

“If we don’t address the problem, we could lose our majorities.”

The GOP cannot afford to lose more than 10 seats in the U.S. House or the Senate. Democrats are not considered likely to win back the edge in the Senate, but the House could be a possibility.

The Republicans have a 26-23 edge in the state Senate and can lose no more than one seat before control flips to the Democrats. Their 57-41 edge in the House makes loss of control there less likely.

The GOP’s problem Dunn said national pollster Linda DiVall has pegged the gender gap at about 19 percentage points when it comes to congressional candidates.

That’s a “gender canyon, not a gender gap” and a “significant electoral problem” the party must face, DiVall said.

In the presidential election a year ago, President Clinton got 54 percent of the women’s vote, compared with 43 percent of the men’s. Women, who comprise about 54 percent of the voters, provided the winning margin for Democratic congressional candidates in some close races.

“This is a huge political problem that needs to be solved. We send our Republican candidates into elections at a 19 percent disadvantage,” Dunn said.

She said she has been tracking the problem since becoming state Republican chairwoman in 1981. Because Ronald Reagan was popular with both men and women, the GOP landslides of 1980 and 1984 and George Bush’s coattail victory in 1988 masked the party’s long-term problem with women, Dunn said.

Clinton’s two victories brought the problem home.

What’s it all about?

Dunn has her theories about why the problem exists.

Men in decision-making roles in the party and in Congress “have their own issues of interest, and they sometimes forget the women or they forget how to do the translation of whatever issue they are working on so that it might connect most effectively with women,” she said.

“We’re beginning to realize that women think of government a little bit different than men,” Dunn said. “Women, for example, see government as having a safety-net role. You won’t hear that from men to the degree you do from women.”

Much of the “Republican revolution” was couched in martial male terms and images - slash taxes, roll back the government, cut welfare and so on, she said.

“You see men using all those sports analogies - I hear them all the time in Congress, and it’s just not something women want to hear. Elizabeth Dole has a great line that ‘For women, government is a mission field, not a battlefield.”’

Dunn, pro-choice on abortion, conceded the party’s position turns off some voters. She said the GOP can respect all points of view and look for areas of possible overlap, such as parental notification in most teen-abortion cases and restrictions on late-term abortions.

Like Foreman, she said she wants the party to do a better job of assuring women it is not anti-education or anti-environment. Economic issues, including welfare reform and capital-gains tax cuts, can pick up more support from women if explained from their perspective, Dunn said.

So where from here?

Dunn is using her leadership post of Republican caucus vice chairwoman to work on the problem.

With the backing of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, she has engaged Richard Wirthlin, the former Reagan consultant who came up with the gauzy “Morning in America” campaign theme, to do in-depth polling.

The prime question: What do women expect from government?

Using the material Wirthlin’s surveys provide, Dunn and others will begin refining suggestions on how to fine-tune the GOP agenda and how to do a better job of pitching it to women. Dunn will sponsor a national conference in Washington, D.C., in April and expects the strategies that emerge to “fan out to all 50 states.”

The state party has appointed a gender-gap committee headed by Adele Goss of Walla Walla and Diane Tibelius of Bellevue. The party, including House and Senate caucuses, hopes to learn from Dunn’s efforts and to add some local twists of its own, said House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee.

“We need to be listening a lot more than we are,” said Senate Majority Leader Dan McDonald, R-Bellevue.

A Dunn deal

Dunn, 56, a single mother of two grown sons, has burnished a Reaganesque image as a great communicator. A recent profile in National Journal says she is “quickly emerging as one of her party’s savviest spokeswomen” who “brings to the table a special talent that other Republican leaders admit they sorely lack - an ability to persuasively communicate with women.” The profile calls Dunn “the GOP’s new golden girl” and a potential successor to the speaker.

Business Week called her a “translator to women” and a conciliatory leader of top rank. A post-session analysis in The Seattle Times said she and Sen. Slade Gorton have emerged as the region’s power players. In the House leadership, Dunn is “uniquely positioned as the only one of the six who is well-liked and respected by a wide range of colleagues,” the Times said.

This ‘n’ that

Flamingo in the barnyard: That was U.S. House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde’s description of Republican Senate hopeful Linda Smith. Stumping for Smith in the Seattle area this past week, the Illinois lion called her “absolutely fearless” and added, “She has never caught Potomac fever. In fact, she has brought Puget Sound fever to the Potomac.” He makes a virtue out of her brash outspokenness: “She’s in your face for what’s right.”

Country boy: The race for Smith’s 3rd District House seat has picked up another candidate. He’s Rick Jackson, a Vancouver doctor who also writes and sings country music and is a stage dad to two teenage sons with television careers. Vancouver chiropractor Paul Phillips also is running for the GOP nomination and the field could grow. Democrat Brian Baird of Olympia, who nearly knocked off Smith last year, is odds-on favorite for his party’s nomination.

MEMO: David Ammons is the AP’s state political writer and has covered the statehouse since 1971. He may be reached at P.O. Box 607, Olympia, WA, 98507, or at dammons@ap.org on the Internet.