The Democrats’ “war on women” mantra has been around for months, but anew poll suggests it’s not making much of an impact. The pollby the Kaiser Family Foundation found that just 31% of women believe in a “wide-scale” effort to limitreproductive health choices. Of that group, 75% believed it was a “badthing.” That means that just 23% of women (and only 20% of the public asa whole) are reacting to the “war on women” the way the DNC clearlyhopes they will.
Not surprisingly, the women responding to this message are overwhelmingly liberal.Among self-described liberal women, 49% believe in a wide-scale “war onwomen.” Among self-identified conservative women, that number was just18%, but of those nearly as many saw it as a “good thing” as a “badthing” (6% vs. 8%).
So will the “war on women” be a factor in this year’s election? While 42% of women report taking some action as a result of what they’veheard about this issue, activity is split fairly evenly betweenliberals and conservatives (51% vs. 41%). Of all the women surveyed,only 10% report reconsidering who to vote for and, again, that includespeople who switched in both directions.
The poll does show that a majority of women who are registered voterstrust Obama to “look out for the best interests of women” (59%-25%).However, the poll also shows that so-called women’s issues includingabortion are way down on the priority list for respondents. Even amongself-identified liberal women, the economy/jobs is the top issue at 58%with women’s issues/abortion trailing at just 6%.
No doubt it would be helpful to Obama’s reelection chances to makejobs numbers out today, that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.