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American Morning

The Bush Presidency: What Do Women Think?

Aired May 03, 2001 - 10:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We heard earlier from Karen Hughes, a trusted adviser to President Bush, women playing a major role in his administration, from national security adviser and EPA administrator to the secretaries of Interior, Agriculture and Labor. Yet, Mr. Bush received lower marks from women than men in his first 100 days in office.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve is live in Washington with our polling director -- Jeanne, good morning once again.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

First, a glimpse back at November. According to exit polls, 54 percent of the women who voted, voted for Al Gore, 43 percent voted for George W. Bush. So just how do they feel about the president 100 days into his administration? Keating Holland, our director of polling, joins us. Keating, what is the big picture?

KEATING HOLLAND, CNN POLLING DIRECTOR: The big picture is the first hundred days men really liked left women cold. That's not to say that women dislike George W. Bush, but men like him a lot more and in the first hundred days we see his favorable rating going up significantly among men, only a point among women.

MESERVE: What is it that men liked so much?

HOLLAND: One thing is they liked the tax cut. Another thing is they like China. A third thing is they like strategic defense. Those are all men issues. Those are all issues that men respond to very, very well. And, they're not issues that are particularly high among women. We see here women don't, women are iffy on the Bush tax cut. Men really, really like it. So all of the chips that the Bush people put in the first hundred days on the tax cut helped them among men, didn't really move the needle all that much among women.

MESERVE: Are there some particular issues where you see a real discrepancy between men and women?

HOLLAND: Yes. Two in particular stand out. One is Social Security. We see that women are much more likely to say, well, I'm sorry, women are split over whether or not Bush will actually be able to protect Social Security in the years to come. Men are pretty confident that he'll be able to protect Social Security. The second issue is health care. Once again, women are split over whether or not Bush will be able to improve the health care system. Men, once again, very confident that Bush will be able to improve health care. Those are two safety net issues. They're things that they haven't really mentioned all that much in the first hundred days. That's probably one of the reasons why we haven't seen the needle move among women all that much during the first hundred days.

MESERVE: Now, during the election there was a lot of speculation that there were two issues of particular importance to women, the environment and education. Is there polling data on those particular issues?

HOLLAND: There really is not a gender gap on either of those. Men and women feel pretty much the same way on the Bush environmental record and the education record, that is to say, men and women are both split on whether or not they approve of the Bush environmental record and they like what he's done on education so far.

The interesting thing there is that these are issues which are not safety net issues. They're issues which are of more general concern -- public schools, drinking water, that sort of thing affect men and women equally. What we find, where we find big gender gaps is almost always on the issues of greater concern to people who are of poor health or worried about their health, worried about old age. Women have a tendency to worry about those things more than men do.

MESERVE: Put all this in perspective for us. An election still years away. How significant are George W. Bush's problems with women voters?

HOLLAND: Right now we've got to remember that he gets a good mark from women, it's just that he gets better marks among men. That's the important thing to remember. The second thing is there's a lot of time for the Bush administration to start talking about those social net issues, to start talking about the Social Security, to start talking about health care. We're only a hundred days into this. A lot of water still to come under the bridge.

MESERVE: Keating Holland, thanks so much for joining us. And more on women and women's issues and George W. Bush coming in the one o'clock hour when we talk to Ellie Smeal. She's president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

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