The Campaign Unites Mars and Venus

When it comes to presidential preferences, men and women appear to inhabit different planets. The infamous gender gap shows women 15 percentage points more likely to support Bill Clinton over Bob Dole. In seeking to win these women back, Republicans might try putting down their polling data and taking a page from John Gray’s best-selling book, “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.”

As Gray would tell them, simply “getting tough” on everything and everyone--from deficits to illegal immigrants--is no way to a woman voter’s heart. We don’t want our “hot buttons” pushed, we want our heart strings tugged. We’d like a little less outrage and little more inspiration. But since it’s unlikely that such a touchy-feely tome would land on Newt Gingrich’s reading lists for Republicans, they might simply take a cue from their new vice presidential candidate, Jack Kemp, who hasn’t read the book but doesn’t need to.

In the universe Gray describes, Kemp comes from Venus, Dole from Mars. Dole’s legislative approach to politics may appeal to the right side of the electoral brain, but it leaves the left lobe cold. Kemp doesn’t just balance the ticket, he balances both hemispheres. Aside from his considerable charm, he brings three female-friendly strengths to the campaign.

For starters, Kemp is what the Washington Post described as a “one man walking outreach program.” Kemp’s lifelong crusade to make “the party of Lincoln” home to minorities and nontraditional voting constituencies has sometimes earned the ire of the Republican establishment (as with his habit of endorsing unknown black Republicans in primary contests with better known candidates). But while other pols have paid lip service to a Republican “big tent,” Kemp has helped build it. Kemp’s second asset is his economic philosophy. It’s not that women are likely to go weak in the knees over talk of marginal tax rate cuts or capital gains indexation. But Kemp addresses economic issues in a way that transcends numbers. Republican pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick says that women care about pocketbook issues more in terms of how much it takes to clothe and feed their family than in terms of market rates and inflation.

Moreover, while Dole has tended toward a Mars-like approach to the budget--adding up the ledger, trimming wasteful spending--Kemp’s focus on expanding the economy by cutting tax rates appeals to the Venusian values of boundlessness, creativity and hope. Unique among Republicans, Kemp draws inspiration from John F. Kennedy, who observed 34 years ago: “An economy hampered with high tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never produce enough output and enough jobs.” Like wives sitting down with their husbands to discuss family finances, women don’t just want lectures about how we need to cut consumption. We’d like ideas on how to bring in more income.

Kemp’s third Venusian virtue is his reputation as a “bleeding heart conservative.” He is Dole’s best bet to bridge the gap with women who personify Kemp’s mantra that “they don’t know that you care unless they care that you know.” Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for the American Woman and Politics, has observed that even in economic good times, “women feel personally closer to the edge of economic insecurity than men. . . . Talk of withdrawing economic safety nets strikes closer to home.”

The reason that Democrats are so rattled by Dole’s vice presidential pick is that they know Kemp can make mincemeat of their “mean-spirited Republicans” theme. Till now, Clinton could claim a monopoly on Venus voters. And in mastering the more emotive, empathetic communications style described by Gray, GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio remarks that “It looks like [Clinton has] read the book 15 times.”

But for all his sheepish lip-biting, Clinton can’t match Kemp on the one quality he’s never been able to fake: conviction. William F. Buckley says that Kemp has “a magnetism that attaches only to the innocent, to the true believer.” While both Clinton and Kemp have mastered the Venus vocabulary, Kemp means it. And by reaching out to form this intergalactic electoral alliance, Dole has proved that he does too.