Hillary Clinton is intensifying her focus on women voters.


BOSTON GLOBE

No wonder the republicans are attacking Hillary like crazy....the Clinton Express is heading down the tracks.....I hear the train a coming.........andy

Clinton's team says women will carry win

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff | October 15, 2007

Buoyed by her strong lead among women in polls, Hillary Clinton's advisers are predicting that women will carry her to victory in the Democratic primary and that, if they do, they will turn out to vote for her in historic numbers in the general election next November.

The senator from New York is intensifying her focus on the female demographic with a series of women-focused events planned for this week, including an announcement in Manchester, N.H., tomorrow of a program to help working parents, an appearance today on the talk show "The View," and a fund-raiser and issues conference in Washington on Wednesday.

A memo to be made public today by Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, contends that women will be the deciding force in the 2008 elections, and says the campaign's internal polling shows that 94 percent of women under 35 said they would be more likely to vote in the November election if the first woman nominee is on the ballot. Women represented 54 percent of the voters in 2004, but if Clinton is on the ticket, she can boost that majority by another point or two, Ann Lewis, a Clinton adviser who focuses on women's outreach, predicted yesterday.

On the campaign trail, Clinton often earns her biggest applause when she talks about how excited she would be to be the first woman president. Women who come out to see her cite her gender as a major source of their enthusiasm. In fact, women make up 65 percent of voters who attend Clinton's rallies, Penn writes. And they are a majority of her smaller donors.

Even some of Clinton's advisers were not expecting her gender to inspire such reactions.

"The intensity of it has surprised a lot of people," Penn said. "We are talking about electing someone from the group that is the majority of voters. That's more powerful than people realize."

Clinton's current lead in the polls, both in the Democratic primary and in a hypothetical general election contest, is thanks in large part to women. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Clinton leading in the Democratic primary with 57 percent of female voters compared with 15 percent for Senator Barack Obama, and 13 percent for John Edwards.

Penn pointed out that the Post-ABC poll shows Clinton beating former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York by 8 points overall, and by 18 points among women.