Why Not a Woman?

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Democratic Party officials and leaders of the women's movement have assembled a sort of consensus short list of possible vice-presidential nominees: New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, Louisiana Congresswoman Corinne C. ("Lindy") Boggs and, sometimes, Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. The Republicans, of course, have their ticket assembled. But if George Bush were not already Reagan's No. 2, the President could try to repair the gender gap by picking a vice-presidential candidate from among the accomplished women in his party. Two standouts: Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum and Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole (see box with following story).

Putting a woman on the ticket would undoubtedly be a gamble. It is impossible to know how voters would respond to the idea in November. Their reaction would depend in large part on who the woman was. In the abstract, one poll last week showed that, by 54% to 37%, registered voters think it would be a good idea for the Democrats to have a woman on the ticket. A New York Times/CBS News poll last month, however, found that the advantages and disadvantages of having a woman on the ticket canceled one another out. It would pick up votes among younger women and Republican women, only to lose them among older men and men from suburban areas.

Women are potentially the strongest interest group in the nation. They will make up almost 54% of the electorate in November, and they are more likely than men to go to the polls. Women are hardly a single-minded interest group, however, and they do not vote monolithically. Phyllis Schlafly, who has spent years campaigning against the Equal Rights Amendment, presumably does not pull the same levers on Election Day that, say, Bella Abzug does. But overall, women vote somewhat differently from men. The differences were conspicuous in a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week. In a hypothetical race between Reagan and Mondale, men choose Reagan, 60% to 37%, while women picked Mondale, 48% to 44%.

Figures like that inspire Ann Lewis, the political director of the Democratic National Committee, to perform some hopeful arithmetic. In the 1980 election, 86.5 million voters turned out. Reagan's margin of victory was 8.4 million. There are 31 million women eligible to vote but unregistered. If the Democrats succeed in bringing out an additional 13.5 million voters in 1984, they should get two-thirds of those additional voters, or 9 million. Add 4 million more votes from the 5.7 million that went to John Anderson in 1980. Reverse Ronald Reagan's advantage with women in 1980 (they picked him, 47% to 45%, while men went for Reagan, 56% to 36%) and that adds 3 million or 4 million more. That is an imposing pile of ifs, but it is easy to see why Lewis and many other Democrats believe that the key to a victory in November is a large turnout of women voters.