Dogged battle joined for the 'lipstick' voter

IT'S ALL about the women, stupid! The fight is on to capture America's 110 million female voters, with both presidential candidates launching an aggressive push for women's votes in the final six-week sprint to the US election.

This weekend, the Democratic Party is organising special events in all 50 states, as part of Barack Obama's "Women for the Change We Need" strategy.

There is everything to play for: a survey by the Pew Research Center last week found that Obama has a 10-point lead over McCain among women voters overall but McCain leads Obama by 48 to 41 among white women voters.

In a carefully orchestrated appeal to a key voting group, the Republican and Democrat candidates are running adverts on abortion and stem cell research. Obama's radio advert, which is running in Indiana, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire among other states, features nurse Valerie Baron, who says: "John McCain's out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose." Mailshots hammering home the same message have been sent to voters in Florida and Virginia.

McCain has fought back with a radio advert which focused on stem cell research. The Republican candidate said he will invest more money in research to prevent disease and find medical breakthroughs to "help free families from the fear and devastation of illness."

McCain also implied that he is not as far right on abortion as Obama has suggested. The Republican opposes abortion rights generally but makes an exception when the life of the mother is in danger and, unlike his running mate Sarah Palin, in cases of rape or incest.

Highlighting another popular issue with women voters, the Democrats have been running an advert on equal pay in swing states. The ad says that women earn on average 77 cents in the dollar compared to men and accuses McCain of voting against an equal pay law.

Women voters are being carefully targeted, perhaps more than ever before. "Just saying that they support women is not enough," said Victoria Budson, executive director of the Women and Public Policy Programme at Harvard University. "The candidates are going to have to back that up by demonstrating a commitment to healthcare, education, the economy and the difficulties of balancing a family and a job."

Launching his bid for the female vote, Obama announced he had won the support of hundreds of national women's leaders. Keen to portray himself as a candidate with appeal to women, he is sending female Democratic governors, senators and high-profile supporters to campaign for him in battleground states.

His former rival for the Democrat candidacy is also being deployed to counter the effect of Sarah Palin, the potential Republican vice-president whose emergence from Alaskan obscurity galvanised McCain's campaign. On Friday, Hillary Clinton stepped up efforts to persuade her supporters to get behind Obama. As well as seeking donations, Clinton urged her supporters, many of whom are still smarting over her treatment at the hands of Obama, to start travelling to battleground states each weekend, beginning with New Hampshire on September 27.

In a conference call to thousands of supporters, she said, "This is a call to action. This is a must-do. We all have a role. And there is not a moment to lose." But not all Hillary supporters are listening. The McCain campaign picked up a scalp with the news last week that former Clinton supporter Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a vastly wealthy and influential socialite, had switched her allegiance to the Republicans, expressing the view that Obama was "elitist".

In turn, team Obama secured the endorsement of the National Organisation for Women, the first time that the campaigning group has supported a presidential candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984. The Illinois senator scored further points with the endorsement of Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama activist whose fight for equal pay ended up in the Supreme Court and inspired the 2007 equal pay legislation which bears her name.

But the Democrats have a fight on their hands. McCain's adoption of Palin as his VP candidate has transformed the fight for women's votes, and cut across traditional dividing lines in American politics.

Asked in a Pew Research Center poll last week to use one word to describe Palin, voters variously chose "refreshing" "interesting", "good", "inexperienced", "conservative", "great", "unknown" and "smart".

Most interest has been generated by the identification of a new swing constituency – "the hockey moms", 2008's version of the "soccer moms" who propelled Bill Clinton into the White House in 2004. Hockey moms are Palin's people, and recent polling suggests they are disproportionately likely to vote Republican.

Lisa Dane, a New York museum administrator, mother of two and former Hillary Clinton supporter, is typical of the group McCain is hoping to draw away from the Democrats. She said: "I still don't know who I'm going to vote for. I like Obama but I'm upset that he didn't pick Hillary Clinton as his VP. But as a feminist I can't vote for Sarah Palin."

Barbra Streisand and Lindsay Lohan are among high-profile celebrities who have come out against Palin and the internet is awash with appeals from women to other women not to vote for Palin. They include "This woman is the Devil" and "Palin terrifies me – how can a woman in the 21st century be opposed to equal rights for women and to a woman's right to choose?"

Keen to persuade her supporters not to gravitate towards the only woman on the ticket, Hillary Clinton said recently: "You can be excited about someone being nominated for vice president - we (Democrats] did it in 1984 with my friend Geraldine Ferraro. The Republicans have done it in 2008, but that's not a good enough reason to vote for that ticket."

The danger for both candidates is that in wooing the female vote they switch off the male constituency. As Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters, points out: "There are many different women with many different views. Men and women are interested in the same kind of issues. Women may say they are concerned about the price of food and men may point to the price of gasoline but when you get down to it they are both concerned about the economy."

Female and franchised: who gets their support?

HOCKEY MOMS
At the Republican Convention, Sarah Palin asked: "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull? Lipstick." Palin's quip has made hockey moms central to this election. According to polling, the hockey mom demographic – white, married women with kids under 18, incomes over $75,000 and living in the prime hockey-playing regions – favour Republicans over Democrats by 9%.

CLINTONISTA SISTAS
Disgruntled Hillary supporters who can't bring themselves to support Obama. Will they go right over to support McCain and Palin? Democrats hope they have the traditional, feminist left on side, and Jill Biden and Michelle Obama are on the road appealing to Democrat activists.

CHRISTIAN STAY-AT-HOME MOMS
McCain's heartland supporters, energised by Palin – and her decision to carry her son Trig, who has Down's Syndrome, to full term. Disproportionately likely to be McCain/Palin voters, attracted by the line on abortion and family values.

SEX AND THE CITIES
Covers a huge demographic, from the never-married to the divorced or widowed, but whichever way you look at this group, Obama has them in the bag. A poll of single women voted Obama the candidate they would most like to see naked, and a Gallup poll in mid-August showed that 57% of unmarried women intended voting for the Illinois senator.

'VIRGIN' VOTERS
First-time voters are overwhelmingly pro-Obama, with college campuses energised by his message of change to a degree not seen since Vietnam. They are the one part of the female demographic that seems immune to the appeal of Sarah Palin.

THE GOLDEN GIRLS
McCain, the war hero with right wing views, gets the older, white woman's vote.