Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Women are rejecting Kerry in large numbers

NY Times:

It was no accident that John Kerry appeared Tuesday on "Live With Regis and Kelly'' and recalled his days as a young prosecutor in a rape case. Or that he then flew from New York to Jacksonville, Fla., to promote his health care proposals. Or that on Thursday in Davenport, Iowa, he will preside over a town hall meeting on national security with an all-women audience.

These appearances are part of an energetic drive by the Kerry campaign to win back voters that Democrats think are rightfully theirs: women.

In the last few weeks, Kerry campaign officials have been nervously eyeing polls that show an erosion of the senator's support among women, one of the Democratic Party's most reliable constituencies. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, women who are registered to vote were more likely to say they would vote for Mr. Bush than for Mr. Kerry, with 48 percent favoring Mr. Bush and 43 percent favoring Mr. Kerry.

In 2000, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, the Democrat, while 43 percent voted for Mr. Bush.

Democratic and Republican pollsters say the reason is that an issue Mr. Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message - which candidate would be best able to protect America from terrorists - has become particularly compelling for women. Several said that a confluence of two events - a Republican convention that was loaded with provocative scenes of the Sept. 11 tragedy, and a terrorist attack on children in Russia - had helped recast the electoral dynamic among this critical group in a way that created a new challenge for the Kerry camp.

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Mr. Bush frequently tells audiences about the newfound freedoms for Afghan women who were liberated when the United States toppled the Taliban. His campaign rallies often feature signs saying "W stands for Women.''

On Tuesday Mr. Bush, who has presented himself as the nation's defender in chief, spoke directly of the attack this month in Russia, where extremists killed more than 300 people, half of them children, in an attack on a school. In a speech at the United Nations, he mentioned a grieving mother whose son was safe but who had lost her nephew in the attack.

"The Russian children did nothing to deserve such awful suffering and fright and death,'' Mr. Bush said.