North Carolina: Playing The Woman Card?

by | May 18, 2016 | 2016 Elections, Campaigns, National Politics, Politics, Presidential race | 10 comments

When North Carolina voters go to vote in the November 8, 2016 election, they will choose between twelve statewide candidates, six of whom are Democratic women, and twelve Republicans, all men, except for one. Look at these top competitive statewide offices:

November 8, 2016 Ballot

Democrat Republican Libertarian
President: Hillary Clinton Donald Trump Gary Johnson
U.S. Senate: Deborah Ross Richard Burr Sean Haugh
Governor: Roy Cooper Pat McCrory Ken Fortenberry
Lt. Governor: Linda Coleman Dan Forest
Attorney General: Josh Stein Buck Newton
Commissioner of Agriculture: Walter Smith Steve Troxler
Commissioner of Labor: Charles Meeker Cherie K. Berry
Commissioner of State Insurance: Wayne Goodwin Mike Causey
Secretary of State: Elaine Marshall Michael LaPaglia
Superintendent of Public Instruction: June Atkinson Mark Johnson
State Treasurer: Dan Blue III Dale Folwell
State Auditor: Beth Wood Chuck Stuber

Note: Women in bold, incumbents in italics 

North Carolina has a tradition of electing women to statewide office, including Governor (Bev Perdue), and in the 2016 election women will represent 50% of the Democratic statewide candidates and, for the first time, a woman presidential candidate will be the top of our state’s ballot.

Will it make a difference?

Yes, it will. If these Democratic women plan and execute a campaign strategy together—especially when linked Secretary Clinton’s campaign—and make the case that more women in elected positions are good for North Carolina and the country, they should all win.

Thus far, both the 2016 Democratic and Republican primaries demonstrate that Clinton’s support is greater among women and Trump’s voters are strongly male.  So, the 2016 election will be more focused on gender than any other presidential election in our history.

Note that three of the North Carolina female candidates are current Democratic officeholders and three are not, but there is enough campaign experience within that group to layout a campaign—starting now—that could ride a national and state wave of electing women to public office.

2016 may well be the year of the woman in national and North Carolina politics.  Over the years, my career as a political consultant and teacher has led me to conclude that men in politics have screwed up this country pretty badly.  It is time to put the women in charge…they certainly can do as well as men have and probably better.

(DISCLOSURE: I will vote for all six Democratic women candidates and might even vote for the lone female Republican Labor Commissioner candidate. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I am voting, I find that I am uninformed and unsure about some candidates, usually those running for judge positions. So, over time, I have voted for the woman candidate anticipating we will get more fairness, humane understanding about all human problems from the judicial bench, just because the judge is a woman. Is that playing the woman card?  It works for me.)

But, now we have a woman running for President on our country and state ballots, and both have more women voters than men. In a March CNN/ORC poll, 73% of these female voters—both Republicans and Democrats—said they don’t like Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. That is an increase from 59% last December and I think it is not likely to decrease the way Trump feels, talks and disparages women. Gallup finds that Trump has the highest unfavorable rating ever recorded for a presidential candidate. In North Carolina, PPP finds that Trump’s unfavorable ratings are around 60%. As a pollster, I can tell you that disapproval ratings are difficult to change and are directly correlated with how you intend to vote.

Once again, I expect the 2016 to be the year of the woman.

First, because Donald Trump is now the leader of the North Carolina Republican party. Our present Governor, Lt. Governor, U.S. Senators, and all other GOP candidates wholeheartedly support Trump. None of North Carolina’s Republican candidates have yet to distant themselves from Trump and his repugnant insults,  disastrous foreign and domestic policies—especially those that deal with care for families, women and children.

Trump needs to be branded early and often by Democratic candidates as the new face of today’s North Carolina Republican party. They are now the “Trump Team” and need to be labeled that way as often as possible.

The second reason this is the year of the woman is the fact that Hillary Clinton will be at the top of the ballot and will campaign on issues that truly affect North Carolina families, women and children. Each of North Carolina’s female candidates should be supportive of Clinton’s long-time work with families and her plans for equal pay, reproductive rights, family leave, health care, senior care, gun safety, education and other key issues.

In addition, I strongly believe it is time for a woman to lead this country. Barack Obama proved a minority candidate could run, win and govern. In other countries, women have proven to be good leaders and role models for both boys and girls. Hillary Clinton will do the same for America.

Finally, my own experiences as a campaign consultant and former Executive Director of the N.C. Institute of Political Leadership, have taught me that the need for women in politics and government is critical, growing, and essential for a strong democracy. From its formation in 1974, the North Carolina IOPL has searched out and recruited women, focusing on those over 40 years of age whose children have left the nest, women of color, and those from rural parts of Northeastern and Northwestern North Carolina.

Furthermore, over my life, I have learned that women work better together than men do; are less prone to look for enemies; don’t need to rush to war; eschew violence and brutality; are less susceptible to corrupt political practices; and place more value on health and life than many men do.

This 2016 election year has already demonstrated that it is historically without precedent, unpredictable, upsetting, more interesting, and is best characterized by setting new and perhaps different standards and goals for American democracy.

For North Carolina and this nation, 2016 is the year of the woman.

So, let’s just play this woman card for all its worth.

10 Comments

  1. No Name

    Sorry, I could not disagree more with this assessment. It’s like you’re not familiar at all with Hillary Clinton and her history. I wasn’t aware that she actually cares about anyone or anything but Hillary and money.

    As an actual woman, I can tell you the following is also not true and especially with regards to Hillary as she has spent her entire life making an enemies list, is a warhawk who LOVES to overthrown other people’s governments & throw their entire country into chaos, and is possibly one of the most corrupt people I’ve ever come across. You don’t even need to read the Wikileaks emails to know this, but they do help fill in the blanks:

    “Furthermore, over my life, I have learned that women work better together than men do; are less prone to look for enemies; don’t need to rush to war; eschew violence and brutality; are less susceptible to corrupt political practices; and place more value on health and life than many men do.”

    Perhaps in your experience this is the case, but in mine people are different or similar, regardless of gender. Generalizing about women does them a disservice, imo.

  2. Vicki Rowan

    As an old feminist, in my opinion once a woman has proved her incompetence, being female stops being a point in her favor. Berry lost her point a long time ago. I am an employment lawyer and NCDOL has been an unmitigated disaster for employees.

    • Norma Munn

      Agreed. No one gets a pass if they are incompetent. I have not been in NC all these years, so can’t judge that situation, but before I vote I will have learned a great deal more.

  3. Vicki Rowan

    Cheri Berry has been a 26 year disaster as Commissioner of Labor. She has done nothing for workers and was the subject of an N&O expose. The much better candidate is CHARLES MEEKER. Being a woman is not necessarily a recommendation.

    • Walt de Vries

      Vicki: I do not endorse Cheri Berry–for me, we haven’t had a first-rate Commissioner of Labor since Harry Payne. Mr. Meeker may well do the same.
      On your other point, about “being a woman is not necessarily a recommendation.” I heartily disagree. Men have screwed up this country so badly that women just have to do better. I have always been puzzled by those (especially women) who argue and assert that women should NOT support women candidates just BECAUSE they are women? And, I say: Why not?
      Ever since Aristotle’s time (circa 300 B.C.), men have voted for and elected ONLY men just BECAUSE they were men and not females. Even many women in the U.S., still do that. Sacre` blue!

  4. Walt de Vries

    Oops. I goofed when I did not put in my table of statewide candidates, J.J. Summerell as the Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor. I should have also pointed out that he is a Fellow of the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership (Fall, 2013 Class). My apologies to Mr. Summerell and the IOPL.
    Actually, the Institute is well represented in the Lt. Governor’s race with Democrat Linda Coleman (Spring, 1996 class); and Republican incumbent, Dan Forest, who is the son of Sue Myrick, a long-time supporter and Board Member of the IOPL..
    As a matter of fact, other IOPL Fellows on the statewide ballot are Republican Dale Folwell (Fall, 1998 Class) who is a candidate for State Treasurer; Wayne Goodwin (Spring, 1990 Class) is the Democratic incumbent candidate for Commissioner of State Insurance; and Elaine Marshall (Spring, 1991 Class, is the Democratic incumbent candidate for Secretary of State.
    Walt de Vries, Emeritus Director, North Carolina, IOPL

    • Norma Munn

      Thanks for the additional information. Will keep it handy.

  5. Norma Munn

    Interesting analysis, and helpful. Thoughtful suggestions re political strategies for the women candidates. It is past time for women to state clearly that “Yes, we do think and act differently from men and that difference is a strength and approach needed in this country.” If Trump wants to call it the Woman Card, my reaction to him and others is a shrug. (Or a suggestion that he get used to it; we are not returning to the kitchen and/or bedroom!)

    In my experience most women tend to work together better than many men. There seems to be a different kind of thinking. Many men seem to think in what I characterize as “either/or” terms. Choices for women seem to often be less rigid and more nuanced, especially in areas of human conflict. On violence, I think there are very few women who have not experienced some degree of threat, and far too many of us have lived with more than a threat — or known other women who have, and I believe we are simply more instinctively reluctant to impose it on others. (Unless you threaten our children; then all bets are off.) I hope younger women are seeing and feeling much less of those threats, but I suspect they are not. It is just not yet connected up to the larger social and work life they experience.

    I agree that men generally have often made a pretty big mess of running this country, even though some have done well under enormous challenges. I wonder sometimes what would have happened in the decade before 1860 if women had been a significant part of our governing bodies. Would this country have gone through the Civil War or found another way out of that conflict in values and views? I would also like to see pictures of Congress (and all elected groups) where there were more faces of color, a few less older folks, a lot fewer lawyers and many more occupations represented.

    (Not knocking lawyers, but distinguishing the facts of one situation from another is not the same as nuanced thinking.)

    • Christopher Lizak

      But what are we to make of the fact that Clinton runs away from the idea of a “feminine principle” in politics? She spends an awful lot of her time making sure we know how tough a commander-in-chief she is going to be. She seems to revel in killing people like Qaddafi and Osama Bin Laden – much like what we have come to expect from right-wing men.

      Her Margaret Thatcher attitude says that “I am just as tough and violent, if not more so, than the men. Just try me.” She doesn’t exactly exude compassion and empathy.

      Can she really have her cake and eat it too? We should elect a woman because it’s time, even though she’s the biggest war-hawk running?

      I like this idea in principle, but I don’t really see how it plays out in the real world, with this particular candidate.

      • Norma Munn

        I was not suggesting that women are not tough. Personally, I think many are tougher than men, but it means a range of choices to many of us – some of which are violence, some of which reject violence. For example, I would not have voted to invade Iraq at the time that Clinton and most other Senators ( and most of this country did), but that was because I was sure that Pres Bush was lying, or at least keeping a lot of information hidden. I also never believed that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were cohorts in any way. Hussein was secular and had little history or interest in being a devout Muslim. bin Laden quite the opposite. But, I have absolutely no problem with the possibility that bin Laden was never given a chance to surrender. At the same time, I am absolutely opposed to the death penalty in this country. Those appear to be contradictory views, but I find violence against bin Laden justified by his actions and the violent actions he trained others to take.
        But carrying out the death penalty is a singular act of violence against a specific individual, and depends on testimony, evidence and eventually a judgement of jurors, whose bias can never be fully known.

        As for Clinton being a hawk, I doubt she is any more a hawk than I am, although I can understand why some may think so. She shows, and has shown for her entire life, enormous compassion for disadvantage people, children, women and families. I doubt she will show much compassion for the leadership of Syria, but I trust her to always remember the price ordinary people in Syria are paying for that war.

        You ask if “she really can have her cake and eat it too?” To me that is an an example of what I mean by either/or thinking. Much of life is a balance, and I suspect the hardest balancing for a president is patience & diplomacy versus force. No president’s actions will ever satisfy all of us, nor history’s judgements. I look for brains, experience, real knowledge and most of all the ability to continue to learn when trying to figure out who to vote for. I won’t support Bernie, even though I agree with him on a couple of issues, but his policies to correct the problems he identifies are not sufficiently substantive. Fox example, I know a bit about the banking system, and Sanders’ solution of “breaking up the banks” and bringing back Glass Steagall is both insufficient and potentially dangerous. Do I like the commercial banks? Not in a million years. It is simply that his ideas don’t actually work in the far more complex financial system than we had when Glass Steagall was enacted, and the sheer size of the truly big banks means they cannot just be “broken up.” One rather simple regulation that Clinton suggested at one point (don’t know if it is in her published policy) was to require greater loss reserves, which has already been done to some extent. The more money a bank has to keep in their possession, the less they can play any games with derivatives and other strange financial instruments. It also slowly cuts down their growth. Just one example.

        Ultimately all of this is combination of information, our own experiences and judgement. None of this means I want only women as our elected officials. Never. But more, many more, and Clinton over the other choices are OK with me. (Although I could really do without Joni Ernest!)

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