Salon: "Compassionate Conservative" Bush plans to "court women voters"

Swaggering toward Election Day
With the 9/11 tragedy as his backdrop, George Bush rediscovers "compassionate conservatism" in time to court women voters.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/03/bush/index.html



Sept. 3, 2004 | NEW YORK -- George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for president Thursday, dragging his "compassionate conservatism" slogan out of the spider hole where it's been hiding since the Sept. 11 attacks, emphasizing education, health and other domestic priorities that pollsters say appeal to women. "I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives," the president said in his prime-time speech on the final evening of the Republican National Convention in New York, officially kicking off his reelection campaign.

The second-term domestic agenda Bush proposed, however, was rather shopworn: tax incentives for businesses in depressed areas (his father called them "Empowerment Zones"; his are "Opportunity Zones"), personal investment accounts for Social Security and other staples of the Republican diet. Bush also advocated welfare reform -- but wait? Didn't President Clinton already do that? And didn't Clinton also make worker retraining, as Bush said he would push through increased community college funding, a centerpiece of his domestic policy? Bush spoke of tax reform but gave no specifics. Could he mean that flat tax that Steve Forbes was pushing four years ago? And why didn't he mention the ballooning federal deficits? As a forward-looking blueprint for a second Bush term, the speech disappointed.

But as a showcase of the softer, compassionate side of Bush, it was a success. There were gauzy video spots of Bush hugging children and romping with his terrier, Barney, and videotaped testimonials to his character from Laura Bush. There were nods to his mother, Barbara. And even when Bush mentioned a perennial Republican goal -- tort reform -- he managed to link it as well to women, arguing that medical malpractice lawsuits are causing obstetricians to leave the birthing business. In other words, a lot of poll-tested estrogen. It came just in time, after the double-barreled attacks of nominal Democratic Sen. Zell Miller and Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday night.

The evening's theme was "A safer world, a more hopeful America." But much of the buildup to the speech, particularly a sad, syrupy video narrated by former Sen. Fred Thompson, focused on the tragedy of Sept. 11, to a point that bordered on political exploitation at a convention based in New York. During the speech, it was the red-meat conservative issues that brought the delegates to their feet: Bush's calls for making his tax cuts permanent, for banning gay marriage and continuing a muscular defense of America. When Bush declared, "I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes," the delegates leapt to their feet amid chants of "USA!"

vote!The man wants to put women back to being property without laws to protect us FIRST!

Funny how religious people will support killing and endangering a human life that HAS a heart beat, over a fetus that doesn't have a heart beat! I know exactly where Bush stands on Women issues...there were MILLIONS of women who told Bush this year to Go Fuck Himself! Those Bush Twits are not role models for any girls either, they are EXACTLY NOT how to raise your girls.

And I'll tell any woman with a pulse why she should not even CONSIDER voting for this Neaderthal.

He and his ilk want to send us back to 1900. Ain't gonna happen, no matter HOW much they wish we'd just go back to the kitchen.

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Now they're really getting concerned that they may not be able to turn out enough of the (estimated by Rove) 5 million evangelical potential voters that they need to get them over the top. So, they they'll have Bush turn on the smile, go on Oprah and cry (which worked very well last time) and in general try to take advantage of women that like men that connect with their "feelings". IMHO, Kerry really doesn't do a good job of this and I think the GOP may be aware of this.

Of course, the Big Dog became many womens' fantasy because he did this so well!

scalia says the same. and blacks should accept that whites have always had the power

so he can shove it with the woman vote