"It's just a feeling, a comfort level," Dina Murphy, a New Hampshire mother who voted Democratic the past three presidential elections, told the on-line newspaper telegraph.co.uk. "I trust Bush more to lead our country."
When it comes to hearth and home, females vote their ovaries. It's the nest, dummy.
On a deep-brain level, mothers want what they dare not utter aloud in a culture that pretends the sexes are the same. They want a man to protect them and their helpless offspring. And the alpha male will be recognized on a level too primitive to be measured by polls.
Oh, by the way, those tremors you feel? Don't be alarmed. It's just the hate-Daddy Metro crowd stamping their feet in protest. This is not an unexpected response when long-buried truths bubble to the surface. It will pass. Sometimes they just need a nap. Meanwhile, as campaign strategists try to paint a portrait of their candidate as the more intellectual, or the smarter strategist, or the morally superior man, or the more nuanced or the tougher hombre, they're missing the point. The real issue in the post-9/11 dating game is simple: Which is the truer man?
Who is the most constant, most dependable, most responsible?
Obviously, if you believe Bush lied to drag the United States into war so that Halliburton and pals could get rich, such questions are irrelevant. But if you're a swing-votin' security mom, they matter.
Kerry's luck with the girls could shift, but he'll have to surmount an obstacle course of his own creation, including an impression of indecision and a record of saying what he thinks people want to hear.
Mothers, whose offspring confirm prior experience with some sweet-talkin' dude, know that score by heart. For their votes, they want a stand-up guy who will keep the hyenas at bay, not a windsurfing crooner stuck on his own purple heart.