TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050492/05049924.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 9.4 KB | 182 lines

                τ _/                                                        ╚COVER STORIES, Page 34

POLITICS

The Feminist Machine


Women candidates hope to make 1992 a banner year, but will enough
voters share their rage about abortion rights and Anita Hill to
make a difference at the polls?

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by Wendy Cole/New York, Jeanne
McDowell/Los Angeles and Elaine Shannon/Washington


    The ABCs of this election year are a woman candidate's
dream. A is for abortion, or more precisely the attack on
abortion rights that has enraged pro-choice voters in both major
parties. B is for the backlash against the all-white, all-male
Senate Judiciary Committee, which rubbed women's emotions raw
last October with its insensitive handling of Anita Hill's
sexual-harassment charges against Clarence Thomas. C is for
change, the latest political buzz word for voters and candidates
alike. "Men are running around saying, `I'll change things,' "
says Harriett Woods, president of the National Women's Political
Caucus. "When a woman merely stands up, people say, `She'll
change things.' "

    Those three factors are fueling an unprecedented surge of
activity that could make 1992 a breakthrough year for women in
politics. As of last week, among women, 18 Democrats and three
Republicans were running for the Senate, 96 Democrats and 47
Republicans were running for the House, and eight -- five
Democrats and three Republicans -- were running for Governor.
This will be a record-breaking year for women if more than 10
Senate candidates and 70 House candidates secure their party's
nomination. Fund raising for female candidates has reached new
highs. The National Women's Political Caucus and the Women's
Campaign Fund, which finance women candidates from both parties,
report that contributions are double what they were at this
point in the 1990 election cycle. Emily's List, a seven-year-old
political-action committee that supports pro-choice Democratic
women, will provide funds for up to 30 candidates, more than
twice as many as in 1990. The group's membership has trebled to
9,000 since 1990; 10% of it is male.

    Female candidates seem poised to make their largest gains
in the House, where they occupy 29 of the 435 seats.
Redistricting has created at least 17 open seats, and the number
of voluntary retirements is now up to 49. House Speaker Thomas
Foley predicts that as many as 100 new members will be elected
this year. Because women are viewed by many voters as
quintessential political outsiders, they could benefit from the
anti-incumbent rage that has erupted over the congressional
check-kiting scandal. The demise of the Soviet Union has allowed
voters to be less concerned about foreign affairs and defense
budgets (read: men's issues) and placed new emphasis on social
concerns, such as family-leave policy and day care (read:
women's issues).

    Public-opinion surveys indicate that when women
politicians are compared with their male colleagues, they are
perceived to be more honest, caring and moral; more responsive
to constituent concerns; and more likely to engage citizens in
the political process. Women also score better on the issues
that cut close to home, among them welfare, health care and
education. When it comes to the electorate's No. 1 concern --
the economy -- voters seem inclined to let women take a whack
at the mess. "There's a feeling we should give women a chance,"
says Douglas Muzzio, a political scientist at New York City's
Baruch College. "They can't do much worse than the men."
Certainly voters seem very receptive to the idea of women in
high office. In a Times-Mirror Center poll, 69% of the
respondents (74% of women, 63% of men) felt the U.S. would "be
better off if more women served in Congress."

    But will all this translate into electoral victories come
November? As of 1990, registered female voters outnumbered males
60 million to 53 million. Yet gender voting -- the selection of
a candidate mainly on the basis of sex -- has not been a
significant factor in elections. But some female activists think
that is about to change. Harriett Woods predicts that the
lingering image of the all-male Senate panel sitting in judgment
of Anita Hill will prompt large numbers of female voters to back
women candidates because of their sex. "They're going to go to
the voting booth," she says, "and literally try to change the
face of American politics." Ruth Mandel, director of the Center
for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University,
predicts that this year may go down in the books as the one "in
which women voters joined with women candidates."

    So far, there are only sketchy indications that the
electorate will divide along gender lines. "There may be a
strong desire among women to elect more women to higher office,
but I'm not so sure it is a compelling desire," says Mervin
Field of the San Francisco-based Field Institute. "In the final
analysis for women and men, the chief criteria will be
competence and whether a candidate is aligned with the voters'
views." Muzzio, who analyzes polls for the Los Angeles Times,
agrees. "There is no monolithic women's vote," he says. "Gender
is overplayed by pundits."

    That theory is being put to its biggest test in
California. This year the state will elect two U.S. Senators:
one for a full six-year term as a successor to retiring Democrat
Alan Cranston; the other to serve the remaining two years in
the seat vacated by Republican Pete Wilson when he was elected
Governor in 1990. Women are running for both seats on feminist
platforms. Former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who
narrowly lost the statehouse to Wilson, is a candidate for the
two-year seat. She is stamping much of her fund-raising
merchandise 2% IS NOT ENOUGH, a reference to the current count
of only two women in the 100-member Senate.

    Barbara Boxer, a five-term Democratic Congresswoman who is
running for the six-year seat, is also playing the gender card.
In her race against two male opponents, she relentlessly sounds
the refrain that men who are strong on women's issues aren't
good enough; only a woman will do. The risk is that such
tactics will alienate more voters than they attract. "This whole
business has got very shrill," says political analyst Joe Scott
of the California Eye, a Los Angeles-based newsletter. "It
reaches a point where it is counterproductive and reverse
sexism."

    The four-way race for New York's Democratic Senate
nomination poses a different challenge: Which of two strong
female candidates should women support? Both Geraldine Ferraro,
Walter Mondale's vice-presidential running mate in 1984, and New
York City comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman are veteran politicians
who need no introduction to voters. Yet their rivalry has
stirred deep divisions among progressive women who seemingly
cannot stomach the thought of two women competing for the same
office. Holtzman finds the quandary absurd, particularly since
she and Ferraro stand far apart on certain issues. Ferraro, for
example, backs the death penalty, while Holtzman opposes it.
"Women are capable of making a distinction between two women,
and have been from time immemorial," she says. Ferraro quite
agrees. "Tell those women to start acting like grownups," she
says. "The men can always figure out whom to vote for."

    Another candidate who has excited interest among women is
Carol Moseley Braun, who upset incumbent Al Dixon in the
Illinois Democratic Senate primary in March. Feminists seized
on her triumph over Dixon, who voted for Thomas' confirmation
as a Supreme Court Justice, as evidence that the Hill-Thomas
backlash would propel women to power. "That was an improbable
victory," says veteran feminist Betty Friedan, "so now it seems
like an augury of things to come." But was it? Braun, a strong
supporter of abortion rights, owed her victory less to women's
anger than to the arrogance and myopia of her rivals. Both Dixon
and challenger Al Hofeld, a lawyer, found Braun so insignificant
-- perhaps because she was a woman, perhaps because she was
black -- that they ignored her. While they knocked each other
out, she finished first with 38% of the vote.

    But Braun's candidacy may prove a harbinger on an entirely
different front: the growing strength of the abortion-rights
issue -- particularly when there is a female pro-choice
candidate championing the cause. Until now, pro-life voters have
been more likely than pro-choice supporters to judge candidates
solely on the abortion issue. With Roe in jeopardy, that may be
changing. Shortly after Braun's victory, her conservative
Republican opponent, Richard Williamson, reversed his
long-standing opposition to abortion.

    What happens if, come Election Day, women do not make
great gains at the polls? Will there be a sense of defeat after
such high expectations? There shouldn't be, given the successes
of this campaign season. Women's concerns are high on the
national agenda. The presence of so many women on the campaign
trail has chipped away at the novelty of female candidates; it
is now thinkable that someday women candidates will simply be
taken for granted. "It's a boost no matter what happens," says
Katherine Spillar of the Fund for the Feminist Majority. "Those
who don't win will be better positioned to run and win next
time." Women candidates are scoring big in 1992 -- and the
election is still seven months away.