Autumn Election Urban Legends I: The Women's Vote

Although Wonker is not about to lay odds on who's going to control Congress after the November elections—the Repubs have tended to damage themselves far more effectively than the Dems' scurrilous, saved-up, and often phony scandal-mongering—he is beginning to get the picture that reports of the GOP's certain demise may be greatly exaggerated. From Democratic crowing a week or two ago that the election was in the bag for the loony left, we moved last week to a virtual coronation of San Francisco's own Queen Botox (aka Nancy Pelosi) as Majority Leader and High Priestess of All Things Redistributionist in the House. (Talk about giving Dems a "lift!")

However, the latest meme, which we've seen in a number of places now, indicates that things may be sobering for the Dems, who, by rerunning the same speculative journalism that failed them in the 2002 mid-terms and in 2004, may indeed be living in the Land That Time Forgot. Our friends at PowerLine have certainly had that thought:

I love reading, as elections draw near, about how the "women's vote" is going to be crucial in this or that close race. Since they will represent about half of all voters, I reckon that how women vote will be pretty important in close races. About as important as how men vote.

Funny someone should have to note the obvious. The "women's issues" meme is yet another way that the MSM, schooled in a kind of passive Gramscian desire to subvert everything in American life into some flavor of class struggle propaganda, should roll out yet again this old saw, which has never really worked for them in the past.

Statistics have demonstrated repeatedly over the years that married women's votes tend to mirror the votes of their husbands. (Or if you're a feminist, we're fine with this observation the other way around, too.) Single women are less predictable, but have generally slid to the Dems. But there's never exactly been a chasm here separating the two genders. Another old saw the press trots out again and again rather than reporting actual news (other than the latest Iraq body counts from Al-Reuters) or admitting that the gleefully anticipated Democratic landslide may not occur.

More evidence that the press has become not only predictable but despicably lazy as well.