Campaigns target women

October 23, 2000
BY MARK SKERTIC AND ART GOLAB
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

The presidential candidates' campaigns stepped up their efforts Sunday to appeal to female voters.

With national polls showing women make up the majority of undecided voters, both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush have been aggressively courting female voters.

Democrats, most of them women, crowded into a downtown Chicago hotel ballroom to hear from prominent women in the party, to take a quick phone call from Gore and get energized for the final push before Election Day.

"When we talk about women's issues, we're talking about the issues that touch all of us--all of our families and all of our lives," Gore told supporters. "Women in America deserve a president who understands that, and who will fight for the equality that women need."

A few hours earlier, in suburban Lisle, some of the Illinois GOP's top women officeholders and several former first ladies pledged to meet with small groups of undecided voters in at least 100 homes to win them over to Bush. Republican women volunteers will invite friends and undecided voters to the intimate coffees, where they'll learn where Bush stands on issues such as education and health care.

Illinois First Lady Lura Lynn Ryan pointed to Sunday's Sun-Times/WFLD-TV poll showing the presidential race in Illinois a dead heat. "This state could be the difference in whether or not we elect George W. Bush, and we know that the women's vote will be the vote that decides in Illinois," she said.

Ryan will join former first ladies Shirley Stratton, Dorothy Ogilvie, Jayne Thompson and Brenda Edgar as guest speakers at the coffees. Bush's campaign recently unveiled the "W Stands for Women Tour," which has sent his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, and his wife, Laura, on campaign swings.

At the Democrat's "Winning With Women" rally, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) offered her take on Bush's "W" tour and women who support the Texas governor.

"To me, it stands for, `What in the world are they talking about?' " she said.

She and other speakers, including state AFL-CIO President Margaret Blackshere, soap opera star Nancy Lee Grahn and Cook County circuit clerk candidate Dorothy Brown focused on the same points: getting out the vote and education, equal pay for women, health care and abortion rights--especially abortion rights.

Each speaker told the enthusiastic crowd that Bush was a threat to their right to decide when to end a pregnancy. It is an important issue for women like Dee Manny, one of two at the Democratic rally carrying large red signs emblazoned with the message, "Republican Women for Gore."

Manny and Judith Vandenboom are from the McHenry County Citizens for Choice. Their county is a Republican stronghold, but the party has turned away from those who support abortion rights, they said. "Did you ever hear of moderate Republicans?" Vandenboom said. "We were there first, and the religious right has taken over the party."

Earlier in the day, the GOP women said the abortion issue shouldn't stop women from supporting him.

"I am pro-choice; I don't have the same concept of the issue as George W. Bush but I am all for him," said U. S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill).

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