| You have heard of pure scientists? They are the originators of such pure thoughts that eventuate, a generation later, into such lifesaving practical products as atom bombs and lightbulbs and penicillin. The counterparts of pure scientists are those journalists
whose deadline comes in after the finding of the circuit court judge's ruling that the Florida secretary of state acted reasonably in declaring closed the vote counting, but before the Florida Supreme Court affirms or overturns that decision. What do we do? The tocsin sounds for brave hearts, for the pure political analysts to resume meditation over the demographic voter breakdown of Election Day, Nov. 7.
The focus today is on unmarried women. They voted for Gore overwhelmingly (63 percent to 32 percent). The vote by married women was virtually tied (Gore 48, Bush 49).
Now the great polarization didn't happen overnight. Four years ago, Clinton got 62 percent of the unmarried women to 28 percent for Dole. The quick assumption that unmarried women were scared to death on election Tuesday by the high-pitched Gore predictions that a Bush victory would mean destitution at Social Security time doesn't stand up, unless we pure analysts are willing to say that the fear of dispossession began four years ago and stayed there to frighten unmarried women.
The drama, as you will have surmised, goes back to antecedent quadrennials. In 1992, Clinton vs. President Bush came in 53 percent to 31 percent. Perot got 15 percent. We can't know for sure from whom he took those votes, but if we apply them proportionately, we see that the unmarried women had already swung to the Democratic candidate.
And so we move back, this time by two presidential elections. In 1984, the vote was virtually tied: 49 percent for Reagan, 50 for Mondale. And in 1988, the slippage had begun: 42 for Vice President Bush, 57 for Gov. Dukakis.
What is going on? Several contributing factors are volunteered.
The first is that the GOP is associated with the right to life, and single women are most covetous of the dominion over reproductive rights, as the right to abort is most generally referred to. The assumption here is that married women care less about choice, but this isn't manifestly so: The married woman who finds herself pregnant and already has other children to raise will often opt for an abortion, and this group makes up about one-third of abortions performed. Where then do we look for this near 2-to-1 disparity in the current vote of unmarried women? Continued... |