Your Turn                                           

Netsch and the women's vote By ELLEN CANNON

Women in Illinois voted in overwhelming numbers for Gov. Jim Edgar, despite the opposition of a woman challenger, Dawn Clark Netsch. Does this mean the empowerment of women as victorious candidates, which resulted in electing Carol Moseley-Braun and labeling the 1992 election as the "Year of the Woman," was merely a fluke? Or is there something Dawn Clark Netsch could have done to win women voters away from Jim Edgar and keep the movement going?

Some will look at the success of two other women candidates for statewide office and claim the movement toward female candidates is as strong as ever. But their wins can just as easily be explained by the Republican rout that took place across the nation, since the two women won little-known statewide offices and were Republicans.

There are two reasons why Jim Edgar did so well with women voters. The first is that his campaign understood how women respond to issues. The second is the emergence of "family values" as a core issue. A closer look at the electoral patterns of women can provide some insights in both areas.

There is no homogeneous vote that can be labeled "the women's vote." For example, the vote differs along age lines, with women in their 20s and 30s being more "woman centered" and less ideological or feminist. Young women are concerned about access issues, such as employment, credit and insurance. They are also concerned about low taxes. Abortion is one issue that is important to young women and makes the transition to older women. Women in their 40s and 50s are more feminist since they are the products of the women's rights and civil rights movements. They are interested in government as a tool to transform ideas into action, particularly issues that concern inequality between the sexes. Women over 60 are less issue-oriented and tend to focus on issues associated with senior citizens of any gender, such as pensions, health care, crime and property taxes.

The women's vote becomes even more textured when race, religion and ethnicity are factored into the analysis. The issue of "crime" does not mean the same thing to all women. Caucasian women view it as an issue of law and order, while African-American women see the crime issue as members of their community being victimized by the system.

Netsch was never conveyed as a nurturing woman who understood raising children, family and mothering

The only way to galvanize an electoral response from women is to find a central issue that touches them profoundly. "Anita Hill versus Clarence Thomas" was such an issue in 1992, but no single issue to excite women voters existed during this past election. The issue that came the closest was "family values." But to take political advantage of the nation's concern for the decline in family values, a woman candidate has to package herself in a careful and thoughtful manner.

Family values means home, hearth and nurturing to almost everyone. To most voters it also means raising children with a strong sense of right and wrong. To a degree, family values also implies educating our children and supporting them in school. Dawn Clark Netsch missed the boat when she made education the cornerstone of her campaign, but didn't relate the issue to family values.

The Edgar campaign understood this and effectively conveyed a strong sense of traditional family values on most issues and in all of its television ads. Brenda Edgar played a starring role in a commercial about crack babies. Edgar emphasized the importance of values in a subliminal way in his campaign commercial about welfare mothers. He appealed to women by talking to them about the issues they cared about — crime, lower taxes and the size of government — in a context that emphasized family values.

With no central galvanizing issue and "family values" taking center stage, the "I'm all business" approach of Dawn Clark Netsch fell flat. She was never conveyed during her campaign as a nurturing woman who understood raising children, family and mothering.

This tells us that women candidates of the future have to perfect a difficult balancing act if they are going to win the support of women as a block of votes. To be taken seriously on the issues they must portray themselves as capable, intelligent, independent and honest.

But without the option of putting a "wife and kids" in a television ad, women candidates face the daunting challenge of finding ways to communicate nurturing and the ability to run a government at the same time. As long as "family values" continues to take center stage in our elections, this balancing act must be the pivotal focus of any campaign strategy that is designed to elect a woman.

Ellen Cannon is a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

40/February 1995/lllinois Issues