Women and Election 2000: Their vote was crucial
By Tanya L. Green
January/February 2001 Family Voice

The Beverly LaHaye Institute (BLI) held its second annual Veritas Policy Forum, “Women and Election 2000,” on October 18 at the U.S. Capitol. Attorney Greg Van Tatenhove, chief of staff for Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Kentucky), introduced speakers Betty Aukerman, Jana Novak and Danielle Crittenden.

Crittenden is author of What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Women. So fierce was the competition for women’s vote that she likened it to “a contest between two suitors competing for the same woman’s hand in marriage.” Further, Election 2000 showed women constituted the swing voters that decided this strikingly close election.

“The election results substantiated the BLI-sponsored Wirthlin Worldwide poll—that Bible-Study Moms would be a pivotal swing vote in the election,” said Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, BLI’s senior fellow. “These evangelical married mothers were predominantly for Gov. Bush, and Florida was a stronghold for the Bible-Study Mom vote. Without their strong, unwavering support, this election might not have been so close.”

At the BLI forum, speaker Betty Aukerman personified the “Bible-Study Mom.” She is a married mother of nine, a born-again Christian and strongly pro-life. For her, the primary issue was the role of government in our lives.

“A government that seeks to become greater than the people represented fails to become a government of the people,” she stated.

Crittenden talked about how differences among women influence how they vote. These differences arise from various understandings of a woman’s duty to her family.

“Married women’s interests are intertwined with the family and children,” she said. “[They] tend to vote for candidates who’ll protect those interests.” In contrast, women who have “tenuous and insecure” relationships with men (i.e., single mothers on welfare, working mothers receiving child-care subsidies, divorced women without alimony, and widowed and single elderly women depending on Social Security and Medicare) tend to vote for candidates who favor government programs.

Jana Novak viewed women’s issues from a Generation-X perspective. She co-authored with her father, Michael Novak, the highly praised and widely reviewed book Tell Me Why: A Daughter Questions Her Father About God and Morals.

Novak’s generation is concerned about morality. “While we don’t expect leaders to be perfect, we expect them to be role models,” she said, and Dr. Crouse agrees.

“Most women are tired of ‘reproductive rights’—such as abortion and sexual orientation—being pushed as ‘women’s issues,’ ”she said. “They are deeply concerned about America’s moral decline, about the violence on America’s streets, and the decline of standards in the public schools. They voted for George W. Bush believing he will address those issues.”

More from January/February 2001 Family Voice