How do Dems energize the singles vote?

[cally]

We have a natural constituency there but I see no VP candidate energzing this vote. I think it's the key to the election. I'm a Clark supporter but he didn't connect with women during the primary as a voting block. I think the key to this election is encouragng single women and the non -voting women to vote this election. Both parties are unfortunately playing to the macho man. Too much military accomplishment and not enough real life role. Kerry has done well with women. He needs to do better. (Please...No token appointees. We need results.)

[Scoopie]

1. I'm single and female

And all the females I know - single or married - think Clark is hot.
Seriously. They saw the Speedo shot and, well...
I guess I understand the Edwards thing - well, no I don't - but I think most women will vote for Kerry anyway - I contend it's white male votes we need and Clark would get those.

[cally]

2. De,ms don't have the singles vote and we need it

We all need to go out and get it. All the candidates are great. I'm focused on winning. :hi:

[pansypoo53219]

4. yup

wes is the pretty one.

[funky_bug]

3. The key is Teresa

I luv Clark, and I luved Gert... but I fell absolutely head over heels for Teresa the very first time I heard her speak. Speedo aside, nothing gets to an educated, liberally minded, independant woman more than another of the same.

Teresa's the key - she's her own woman and she's been a very vocal advocate for womens issues for years. I'm telling you - once this cat gets out of the bag, Kerry is going to see his connectivity with the single female SOAR.

[julialnyc]

9. I agree Teresa is the key

Teresa is fascinating, intelligent, independent (and I mean in her opinions), and very stately.
I would love to see her on Oprah.

[spooky3]

5. Here are some points I've heard others put forward.

I would summarize them all by saying both parties need to get educated about demographics. Most people GREATLY underestimate the number of households headed by singles (40-50%), and that many of these are women. They seem to think that the typical household is still Ozzie and Harriet, when in fact they are a tiny minority.

1. Don't assume that they have similar lives, but do understand that they identify most with other single women, of all the groups to which they might belong. So that means they have some shared values.

2. Most of them are working and obviously rely heavily on their own income. That means that workplace issues--equal treatment, opportunities for promotion, and for some work-life issues--are very important. Many women are ticked off about poor enforcement of discrimination laws, the glass ceiling, and the condescending crap they deal with every day. What will the Dems. do about this?

3. Don't assume that all have small children at home (only a small proportion do) or that all are poor, but be sure not to overlook these individuals. What do they need to get them to the polls (transportation, for example)? How can they be convinced that the Dems will affect their lives positively vs. just talk the talk?

4. Many programs work to benefit married people. Single people have to find the money for the same house payment and upkeep, the same real estate taxes, etc. that two people share in many homes. While marrieds may need an extra bedroom, they don't need an extra kitchen, living room, dining room, yard, etc.. What can be done to help even out this burden?

5. Employers often pay more in benefits to people with kids (more often married than single), in the form of health care premiums, tuition reimbursement, etc., than they do for those without who hold the SAME JOB. Equal pay for equal work doesn't seem to be understood when the pay is in the form of benefits, and benefits policies almost always favor those who are married or who have kids and rarely favor the single/childfree.

6. Retired women are often on their own and have medical care concerns. It should be easy for Dems. to respond to this.

Whichever party figures out that "family values" grates on the ears of many of this group, because it often says to them "you are not the mainstream and we will take from you to give to the Soccer Dads with the Stepford Wife at Home and two lovely children", will receive more of their support. No other group should be ignored; it is just that the concerns and interests of some have been taken as the only legitimate ones, while other groups are invisible or worse, treated as undesirables (when in fact they contribute far more in tax money to support schools, etc. than they cost their communities, and are welcomed by smart mayors).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. As a middle-aged single, I agree with the above

I'm committed to voting for Kerry in the fall, but during the primaries it was irritating to see all the talk about "working families" and "health care for children" and no mention of a little-recognized but very much hurting demographic: middle-aged single people who have lost their former jobs and are surviving on temp jobs and handouts from relatives, with no regular income and no health coverage, hoping they live long enough to be eligible for Social Security. (I am self-employed, but I know a lot of people in this boat, all of them formerly in well-paying jobs and committed to job hunting but beset by both a bad economy and evident age discrimination.)

What I'd like to see is health care for everyone, not only children, who--let's face it--with rare exceptions need just immunizations and routine checkups most of the time. "Health care for children" sounds heartwarming, but children are actually the cheapest demographic to cover. There's a reason that your health insurance costs increase drastically with age. The age group that is between 50 and Medicare eligibility pays through the nose and is most in need of relief. Why not extend eligibility for Medicare downward?

Strict enforcement of the laws against age discrimination would be helpful, too.

Affordable housing and pension fund protection are two other biggies for singles--and for other groups as well.

[spooky3]

14. Very good points--to add to your point on pensions

Most people don't realize that if you are single but NOT if you are married, some employer pension plans can force you to forfeit every penny of your retirement money if you die before you retire. (That's the case in a plan I'm in). If you are married, the only way they can do this is if the spouse agrees to it when you first sign on to the plan or amend it later, in exchange for your being able to get higher payments if you survive. It's as if singles have no entitlement to the pensions they have worked hard to earn, and have no dependents (children, pets, nieces, nephews, elderly parents, etc.). So once again, it is seen as ok to take from them and reallocate to people who have other lifestyles that are not inherently better or more deserving. And it means that singles who have dependents have to pay for other life insurance policies etc. to substitute for the pension money that the married employee's surviving spouse would receive. If the law were reversed, married people would be outraged.

People running for office should commit to a review of all laws to remove bias on the basis of marital or family status.

[WI_DEM]

6. put Dean on the ticket

Zogby had a poll last week that a Kerry/Dean ticket would beat Bush/Cheney among singles by 57-34 percent compared to 51-38 for Kerry/Gephardt.

www.zogby.com

[Pastiche423]

8. Agree

I am a single woman and for once in my life, I would love to have a leader that addresses my concerns.

Moreover, my concerns are no different than most Americans...

Healthcare
Social Security
Healthy economy
Education
Environmental protection

I am so fucking sick of imperialism, thievery, nationalism, killing, raping the environment and healthcare only for the wealthy!

But it won't happen in the great U S of A. Not in my lifetime.

[genius]

7. Put Dennis on the ticket.

[Lefty Pragmatist]

10. I'd bet

that the only demographic with a lower percentage of actually voting than single women is the urban poor.

Obviously, we are all different, you can't generalize, kumbai ya and give peace a chance. But single women are predominantly young and/or or poor, and neither of those groups gets to the polls (I imagine the former is hung over and the latter has a lot more immediate problems to deal with).

So, speaking pragmatically, while this is a constituency we should serve as good liberals, it isn't a constituency that will help get anybody actually elected.

[spooky3]

15. Check your numbers--single women are not "predominantly young."

Unless you are defining "young" very broadly. And they most certainly are not predominantly poor, although the poor are disproportionately female.

Why are you so willing to write off this constituency?

I think that the question asked how to get these people to vote. Has it occurred to you that one major reason they don't vote in the %s that they should, is that they don't believe that politicians of either party would work to address their concerns?

Please see this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=545647

See also this website, which has links to Census data and other info on singles (men and women):

http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/main.htm

[JI7]

11. Kerry did very well among women, one reason he did well in the primary

because women tended to vote in much larger numbers than men did, kerry doing well among women voters helped him stay on top in most states and hold a huge lead. it especially helped him in the south in tennessee and virginia where he was competing against southerners.

the way to get out the vote wont be with vp but with informing people of candidates positions on issues and showing them why it's in their benefit to vote.

[TexasSissy]

12. You mean young single votes? Old single votes?

Age is a primary thing, more so than marital status, I think.

If you mean young single votes, I believe that this is why Dean lost Iowa. Young people often don't vote.

I'm an older single person. Kerry already has my vote.

I think they'd do best to stick with courting the undecideds in those battleground states. But I don't know if they are mainly single (I doubt it) or their age (I'd suspect they're middleaged). But I don't know.

[spooky3]

16. This article claims that single women felt disregarded by Bush & Gore.

(You may not be able to see this article--may have to sign up and make a small donation):

(snip)

"That sense of being disregarded by the political establishment is one of the main reasons almost half of eligible single female voters didn't go to the polls in the last presidential election. (Not unlike when your mom writes your personal ad, pollsters are advertising single women's political clout only because the women are too fed up to do it themselves.) According to a survey conducted by "Women's Voices. Women Vote," the organization that started the stir over single women's potential impact on the coming election, women stay away from the polls because they think government doesn't do anything to help them whether they vote or not....

(snip)

Though many are lukewarm about the Democratic candidates (Sedaris says she is "not at all interested in or excited about Kerry" and Maldonado can only recall Al Gore as "what's his name, the guy who lost"), single women still gravitate toward the party. They're more concerned about social issues, more likely to be pro-choice, and more likely to oppose the war. In 2000, "what's his name" led Bush by 36 points among single women, whose numbers matched that of all African American, Hispanic, and Jewish voters combined. In a survey this March by "Women's Voices. Women Vote," 65 percent of single women said they believed the country was on the wrong track, as opposed to 51 percent of the total electorate. And that was before news about the torture of Iraqi prisoners deepened disgust and anger with the president."

http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/members/news/2004/May-News/Presidential_candidates_pitiful_pitch_for_single_women.htm

[spooky3]

17. Here's another article with some interesting #s:

"Single women turned off by politics"

snip

"We looked at demographic changes in this country, and it became clear that more and more unmarried men and women were not participating in the process," Gardner said. "Heads of households are becoming increasingly unmarried. In the 1950s, 80% of households were headed by married people, now it's a 50-50 split. There is a whole growing group of people on the sidelines of our democracy. The numbers literally jump out at you."

For Gardner's purposes, it was the single women who were of particular interest. Had this group voted in the same proportion as married women in the 2000 election, she discovered, an additional 6 million votes would have been cast around the country (including an estimated 202,000 in Florida, which Bush carried by 537 votes).

snip

"Single women are not "enthusiastic" about the war in Iraq, Desser said, but they are not consumed by it either. Abortion was not a primary concern, the survey found. "I don't want to minimize how important choice is to these women," Desser said, "but I think it has long been believed that that's the only issue used to mobilize women, and the fact is that issues that mobilize women are not that different from issues that mobilize men."

Gardner said one of the most striking findings in the focus groups was the reaction single women had when they learned that there were so many of them. "A light bulb went off. They got that if they participated, they could literally change the course of the nation."


http://www.unmarriedamerica.org/members/news/2004/May-News/single_women_voters.htm

[janx]

18. I think the key is to point out that the world does not only

exist of relatively young married couples with small children.

(For starters...)

[spooky3]

19. kick