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Women put social issues in back seat

Republicans said they'll focus on the economy in an effort to appeal to voters outside the base.

The New York Times

August 31, 2012 at 2:23AM

Attendees grab signs during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. (Stan Schmidt — New York Times/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

About a block from the Republican National Convention, in a strip mall next to a Hooters restaurant, is the Woman Up! Pavilion, sponsored by the Young Guns Network, a "super PAC" promoting conservative candidates.

Its decor is welcoming, with curved banquettes accented by hot-pink carnations and red roses. There is a hair salon offering blowouts, and a gift shop. Cocktails like the Lady Lemonade and Woman-Tini are sold for $6.

The pavilion has a one-room women's suffrage museum, and forums on topics like "Advocacy Means Business: Building Your Organization" and "The Europeanization of the United States."

What is missing from the all-inclusive spot? Any discussion of the social issues -- abortion, same-sex marriage, insurance coverage for birth control -- that have at times engulfed the Republican nominating contest.

"We don't talk social issues," said Mary Ann Carter, policy director for the Young Guns Network, who manages the pavilion, as several young women from the convention milled about sipping coffee and shopping for souvenirs. "We talk about the economy. We talk about health care. We talk about energy."

'The soft love approach'

This refrain is often heard in and around the convention. In dozens of interviews, women at the convention made it clear that social issues are taking a back seat. Even those who passionately agree (or disagree) with the new party platform -- calling for traditional marriage, public display of the Ten Commandments and a sweeping ban on abortion -- were unwilling to discuss it. (An exception was Mitt Romney's sister Jane, who Wednesday declared that a ban on abortion is "never going to happen" in a Romney administration.)

Instead, women at the convention preferred to point to opening night, when a parade of Republican women took to the podium, including Ann Romney, who spoke about her family, and Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who preached a gospel of economic empowerment, free of meddlesome government rules. Being visible was one way, the women said, to counter the Obama campaign's charge that their party is waging a war on women.

"They're doing the soft love approach," said Sandra Stroman, a convention participant from Chester, S.C. "They're holding up our women in this party and putting those women in front of the cameras, saying, 'Here are our Republican women. Do they look like we have waged war against them?'"

'Kitchen-table economics'

With the intention of appealing to voters beyond the party's base, many Republican women are avoiding the mention of abortion or gay rights because they are seen as too divisive in such a close, contentious race. Some acknowledge playing down their own views as a strategic move. Instead, they want to talk about the economy, just like the Romney campaign.

"Anything that gives women the idea that they can't find friends in the Republican Party is unhelpful," said Kristen Soltis, a pollster and an adviser to Crossroads Generation, a pro-Romney super PAC. "I think what will be decisive in this election are those sort of kitchen-table economics: How am going to pay my bills? How am I going to make sure my kids get a good education?"

Added Rae Lynne Chornenky, the president of the National Federation of Republican Women, who on Monday repeated the oft-discredited claim that 92 percent of all the jobs lost under President Obama were those of women. "If there is a war against women," she said, "it is President Obama who waged it."