Had to share the optimism oozing out of Florida from the Republican women of that state, as told by Standard Weekly in their email newswire (I was subscribed as a joke by someone, but I keep it because I like to see what they're up to...)
The Florida Federation of Republican Women today took an unusual step and predicted an election day surprise in the women's vote in Broward and Palm Beach Counties partially based on what they are calling the unknown "Hillary - Palin factor".
"Despite the millions Obama is pouring into Florida, we predict an unexpectedly large turnout for the McCain/Palin ticket in some of Florida's most traditionally liberal voting counties, including Broward and Palm Beach. Will Republicans win these counties outright? Maybe not, but McCain certainly will come closer to 50% than any Republican has before and that will be history making in itself," said Linda Ivell, president of the FFRW.
{more hilarity, below}
The Secretary of the organization (and shouldn't all women's organizations really have supplicant men to act as "secretary" for them, bringing coffee and Diet Coke and whatnot?) agrees with her President:
Ana Gomez Mallada, FFRW Secretary and Broward resident agrees.
"After the primary, we were greatly concerned about the numbers of loyal Republican women vowing to cross over to cast a history-making vote for Hillary Clinton in the General Election. While our women do not line up philosophically with Senator Clinton, she is a strong, intelligent woman and after all, women don't always agree with our own male Party leaders. The 'Hillary factor' was of great concern to the FFRW, especially in liberal leaning counties.
"When Obama failed to recognize Senator Clinton's clear national referendum and chose Biden - a man who did not capture even one percent of the vote in either county - it sent an unmistakable and disappointing message to women voters of all parties. Women are poised for women's leadership in the White House in 2008. The addition of a strong leader like Governor Sarah Palin provides this opportunity. McCain's Independent record clearly balances the more conservative-leaning Palin in the minds of these women," Gomez-Mallada said.
If you had any doubt that the PUMA gambit between the primaries and the convention was primarily a Republican-fed concept, ask yourself why the only people STILL bitching about Biden over Hillary are Republicans. And they're doing it again here, pretending that some outsized group of liberal women is just lurking in states like Florida, ready to surprise all of us.
By gum, to hear them tell it there were a whole RAFT of fair weather Republican women, ready to vote for Hillary not because, yknow, they agree with her, but because she's strong and intelligent. (The implication being that these kinds of women either don't exist or don't have a chance in the Republican power structure?) And now that Hillary's gone, not only are the GOP women going to stick with McCain because of Palin (I guess), liberal women will show exactly the same paucity of substantive thinking, and desert THEIR party for someone they don't agree with at all, because she's strong and (?)intelligent(?).
But hey, you might be thinking: shouldn't these obviously smart women be providing some evidence? Like, you know, DATA?
...come come now; didn't I say this was a group of REPUBLICAN women?
Both Ivell and Gomez-Mallada agreed that the prediction is not scientific but based rather upon their unprecedented personal contact from Democratic and Independent women, a careful analysis of the Presidential Preference vote in which centrist John McCain handily won both counties and a healthy dose of women's intuition.
"In this historic election cycle, our calculation is certainly as meritorious as the current polls. We have never seen anything like this election with women quietly coming together across party lines. It is very empowering," Ivell said. [emph mine; laugh line all theirs]
That's right: when there's history afoot, then quite obviously the numbers go out the window, and our best bet is to rely on hopeful anecdotes from a group desperate to save their candidate's chances.
For a final flourish, the press release from the FFRW cites the results of the Florida "Presidential Preference" poll, which of course did not count and which featured no campaigning.
Don't say I didn't warn you! :) And PS--I mean nothing in the way of dimunition to use the word "gals," except to dimunize my headline so it doesn't wrap off the diary margin...