Women and Politics

This post was submitted by Rebecca Freedholm, WCF Communications Fellow

Although recent polls suggest that Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina is garnering support rivaling that of incumbent Barbara Boxer, Fiorina’s anti-woman beliefs may ultimately thwart her endeavors towards becoming a California representative.

Fiorina remains staunchly opposed to a woman’s right to choose, and threatens to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. This strong resistance to women’s reproductive health choices, however, does not sit well with the vast majority of the people she seeks to represent:

“A full 71 percent of Californians favor either keeping the state’s liberal abortion laws intact or making abortion easier to obtain, according to new data from the Field Poll. The same percentage said they support the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.”

Although Fiorina’s spokeswoman Andrea Saul maintains that reproductive rights won’t be a significant issue for voters this year, she vastly underestimates the importance of choice to constituents. This issue is bound to be a huge hurdle for Fiorina “as she attempts to become the first anti-abortion candidate to win a California race at the top of the ticket since 1986.” California democrats are not the only ones who value reproductive health choices, a large percent of republican and independent voters do as well. Fiorina cannot adequately represent California when her beliefs are so intensely at odds with the majority of constituents.

If Fiorina continues to run an anti-woman campaign, she will likely end up isolating herself from California voters—especially female voters: “A Field Poll released in early July found that women prefer Boxer over Fiorina, 51 percent to 40 percent.” Strikingly this poll also indicates that among independent female voters, who offer a crucial pool of support for GOP candidates running for office in such a Democratic leaning state, “Boxer led Fiorina 49 percent to 35 percent.”

There’s no question as to why Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is favored among California women; throughout her career, Boxer has remained deeply committed to women’s health care issues and has been unwavering in her mission to protect a woman’s right to choose. While Fiorina may be unwilling to stick up for the issues most important to Californians, Boxer has proven to be a representative who fights for the rights most valued by the California people. Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, put the situation into significant perspective when she begged the question,

“Are we going to have a senator who defends a woman’s right to choose when it’s under attack by the right wing, or a senator who will join forces with the most extreme anti-choice groups to try to make abortion a crime?”

Sen. Barbara Boxer understands the causes that her constituents care deeply about, and has valiantly fought to preserve the reproductive health care choices that many, including opponent Fiorina, seek to take away. At WCF, we commend Boxer’s efforts in upholding the values significant to Californians, and support her as she continues to be a wonderful representative of her state.

Thanks to Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky for reporting this story! It seems Carly Fiorina, who recently announced her intention to run against Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in California, has already begun her attacks.

Disappointingly, her first jab at Boxer involves gender and isn’t based on any real issues:

“Barbara Boxer … disrespectfully demanded a Brigadier General refer to her as “Senator” instead of “ma’am” during a recent Senate hearing. I’m sure you’ll agree that Boxer’s arrogance and disrespect for our nation’s military leaders is way out of line.”

Fiorina was referring to the way blown-out-of-proportion “incident” where Sen. Boxer asked to be referred to as Senator instead of Ma’am. I hate to see another woman attacking Boxer for making a perfectly appropriate request, which wouldn’t have been an issue if it had come from a man.

While I should be psyched to see a Senatorial race between two women, it almost makes me want to jump into a hole and pull the hole in after me. I envision the dialogue becoming sexist and, of course, being spun as some kind of “political cat fight” by the media.

I truly hope this won’t be the case. I hope these female candidates will stick to the issues and have an intellectual debate, not sinking to cheap or gender-based attacks. (Especially since Fiorina spoke out against the sexism Palin experienced last election cycle).

But this preliminary comment doesn’t bode well for that scenario. And even if the candidates leave gender alone, we all know the media will be there to make the sexist remarks for everyone. Batten down the hatches, folks—this should be an interesting race.

By WCF Fellow: Trish

Martha Coakley’s opponent, Rep. Mike Capuano, said yesterday that his campaign for Massachusetts Senate had received a miraculous turn of good fortune, a “manna from heaven.” Perhaps he’s done something great for the Commonwealth?

Nope. Far from rising through the merit of his own achievement, Capuano is attempting to get a leg-up not just by stepping on women’s rights, but by trying to take Martha Coakley down for standing up for them.

“To pretend that now the House has passed this [health care] bill is real progress - it’s at the expense of women’s access to reproductive rights.’’

Martha Coakley said in an interview, after making similar comments yesterday morning on Boston radio station WTKK-FM.

Several dozen House Democrats vowed in a letter to vote against the final package if it includes the Stupak amendment, a provision reducing women’s reproductive rights and choices to less than the status quo. Capuano has not only not signed the letter, he’s lying when he says, Coakley “would have stood alone” in her opposition to passing a bill with the amendment.

If his lack of support and attempt to alienate Coakley in standing for women’s rights weren’t disturbing enough, hang on, his attacks continue:

• “If she’s not going to vote for any bill that’s not perfect, she wouldn’t vote for any bill in history.”
• “That is a classic example of the differences between us in this race: I understand how to make real serious improvements in the issues that are important to me, in this case, health care.”
• “She claims she wants to honor Ted Kennedy’s legacy on health care. It’s pretty clear that a major portion of this was his bill.”

Capuano is willing to sacrifice what grandmothers and mothers fought generations to achieve so he can claim victory, for whom?

Just like Ted Kennedy would never send African Americans to the back of the bus for a transportation overhaul, he certainly wouldn’t stand for legislation that mutilates the purpose of health care reform by sacrificing the reproductive choice of those who are most in need of options. If anything, Kennedy would see a lioness in Martha Coakley.

Capuano’s got one thing right: the difference between him and Coakley is their leadership (or lack thereof). It’s apparent that it is going to take a special kind of leadership to ensure that our nation gets the health care reform it deserves without budging an inch on women’s reproductive rights and choices. Coakley is that kind of special leader, Capuano is not.

Sen. Barbara Boxer said today that the Senate has the votes to block the Stupak amendment.

“When we sat down to do health care, I thought there was an understanding that we would be abortion-neutral,” she said. “In other words we wouldn’t change anything on abortion; that federal funds couldn’t be used but of course private funds could as long as this was legal. And Roe v. Wade is the law of the land.”

Coakley spoke out on this issue because it is critical that we stand up and fight against this provision. She is not alone. The greatest women leaders of our generation are with her, and no one can undermine that.

And no one, try as they might, can undermine women’s rights as long as we have leaders like Martha Coakley in office.
It is now up to the Senate to ensure that this fundamental inequity is rectified. You can help defend reproductive choices in long battle ahead by supporting Martha’s campaign for Senate today.