Wooing women

Why the Republican's problem with women is a problem for us all

The Republicans are trying to woo women again. First Paul Cellucci and then Joe Malone, his challenger for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, announced that they had chosen female running mates. Cellucci and Malone may be personally committed to moving women ahead in government, but their tactics merely underline their core problem: the Grand Old Party is deeply out of touch with women and their concerns.

Both selections seemed more like empty pandering than an offer of genuine partnership. Janet Jeghelian, a radio talk-show personality whom Malone plucked from a cable TV gig, lacks serious elective experience. Jane Swift, Cellucci's selection, is an impressive up-and-coming talent with considerable experience given her relative youth. But to run with Cellucci, she adopted his positions on two key issues: the death penalty and the assault-weapons ban. To switch so easily on such important matters betrays a lack of philosophical seriousness.

Women voters are not fooled so easily. They have consistently proven to be far more interested in policy than in political theater. It is telling that even a boundary-defying political sophisticate like Bill Weld was unable to transcend his party's woman problem. In 1996, the widely popular then-governor challenged John Kerry for his Senate seat. But Weld limited his message to a bleak troika of crime, taxes, and harsh welfare reform. This may play well at the local Elks Club, but it doesn't attract voters who care about health care, education, child care, and other family-oriented issues -- topics that traditionally concern female voters more than men. Weld, of course, lost.

Jean Inman, the chairman of the Massachusetts GOP (and its first female head), reflected last year that it wasn't enough to say that her party suffered a gender gap -- the problem was more like a "gender gulch," she joked. In the Weld-Kerry race, where abortion was not even an issue, women favored Kerry by a 16 percent margin.

It's hard for enlightened Massachusetts Republicans to undo the damage being inflicted by their national party. To watch the GOP in the 1990s is to witness what looks almost like a determination to drive women away. Consider the message of the last election. Bob Dole opposed the Family and Medical Leave Act. The GOP platform called for outlawing abortions.

Analysts at the time warned that the message would play badly with female voters. And they were right. One poll showed that in congressional races women backed Democrats over Republicans by a staggering 59 to 41 percent.

The same reactionary faction that has been steering the national Republican Party has at times been a force here. But that does not appear to be the case this year. Both Cellucci and Malone are pro-choice, and Cellucci, in fact, has made domestic violence a passionate cause. The real problem is what they are not doing. Neither one has articulated a convincing platform -- on health care, on education, on child care -- that will draw women.

And it's not just Republicans, or women, who are missing out. All across New England, the people have been offered -- and have voted for -- women of genuine stature. Half of Connecticut's House seats are held by women, as are both of Maine's Senate slots. Connecticut, Vermont, and even conservative New Hampshire have elected female governors. On the Boston and Cambridge city councils are several women of ability and conviction. Yet statewide politics in Massachusetts have remained largely a man's world.

Qualified women -- women with experience, women who do not flip-flop on major philosophical issues -- bring a meaningful sensibility, and creative solutions, to government. And to the party that can act on that wisdom, the voters will hand victory.

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