Bush Courts Female Voters

With polls showing his support among female voters has improved, President Bush sought to consolidate those gains Friday, telling a town-hall-style gathering of mostly women supporters here that his agenda had made their lives safer and more prosperous.

He promised to pursue a more women-friendly agenda in a second term. “Women need help,” Bush said.

Using one of his favorite formats, Bush shared a stage with four residents who had been screened by his campaign. They provided enthusiastic testimonials of how their lives had improved in the last four years or would get better if the president’s full agenda was carried out. Each focused on a topic that underscored a basic element in Bush’s message.

In the two weeks since the Republican National Convention ended, several polls have showed Bush narrowing or eliminating the edge Democrats have traditionally enjoyed among female voters in presidential elections.

Four years ago, Democrat Al Gore won 54% of the female vote to Bush’s 43%, exit polls found.

This year, a Gallup Poll conducted just after the Democratic National Convention ended July 29 found that likely female voters favored Sen. John F. Kerry over Bush, 51% to 46%. But after the GOP convention, 49% of likely female voters favored Kerry, with 48% favoring Bush.

A Time magazine poll conducted two weeks before the Republican convention showed Kerry led Bush by 14 points among women. But the most recent Time poll found he had fallen 1 point below the president.

The Democrats’ historical edge among women is crucial, because Republican presidential candidates, and especially Bush, have enjoyed stronger support from men -- by large margins. During the hourlong “Focus on Women’s Issues” event in Charlotte, Bush offered no specific initiatives aimed at women. Rather, in delivering a version of his basic campaign speech, he emphasized his agenda’s benefits to them.

For instance, in arguing that his across-the-board tax cuts are helping small-business owners, most of whom pay income taxes at the individual rate, Bush noted that women own 10 million small businesses in the United States. He also said that 45% of small businesses in North Carolina were owned by women.

“I think tax policy ought to encourage the formation of women-owned businesses,” he said.

Some analysts have said that in addition to spotlighting pocketbook issues, the president’s tough rhetoric on the war on terrorism also might be winning over some female voters.

In a recent panel discussion sponsored by Lifetime television, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said, “George W. Bush is literally the best Republican we have ever seen at targeting women voters, whether it’s for the security message or the joint ads with [First Lady] Laura Bush or the outreach to business owners.”

During his remarks here, Bush defended the war in Iraq, saying millions of women there and in Afghanistan are now free.

In Oregon, Vice President Dick Cheney continued his attacks on Kerry, saying the Massachusetts senator lacked the basic qualities needed in a president.

Facing decisions on war and peace, Cheney said, a president must be “somebody who has clear vision, who can identify an objective, analyze a problem, listen to advice from various quarters and make a decision.”

“And then he has to execute it,” Cheney said. “... He has to stick with it through thick or thin.”

Cheney said that looking at Kerry, “I see a guy who seems to be blowing with the wind from time to time, that the pressures that come to bear are leading him, for one reason or another, to shift position frequently on what is probably the most fundamental issue.”

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Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Oregon contributed to this report.