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So Kerry has adopted a two-tiered strategy. He challenged Bush aggressively in a series of speeches leading up to the first debate, calling Iraq a "diversion" from the war on terrorism. But in more locally targeted ads Kerry portrays the Iraq war as diverting resources from domestic needs. His ads in battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Iowa have focused on his domestic agenda. One ad says the $200 billion spent in Iraq (a figure he has inflated; the actual total is $157 billion) is money not spent in the U.S. on education, health care and other concerns. Kerry went on Live with Regis and Kelly and recalled how, as a prosecutor in Boston, he created a rape-counseling program. Like Bush, he taped a show with Dr. Phil, which will air this week. "Women, especially those who are single women, are really busy people," says Kerry pollster Diane Feldman. They are "not people who necessarily have the time to consume information that is hard to find."
The goal for Kerry is to lock women in and turn them out on Nov. 2. If single women were to vote at the rate of married women, it could make all the difference. In a TIME poll from September, 50% of single women supported Kerry, versus 38% of married women. Single women comprise 43% of the U.S. female voting-age population, but in 2000 nearly half of them remained on the sidelines (compared with 40.5% of the general public). They either had not registered or did not vote. To make sure they get to the polls this time, the Democratic National Committee has a program called Take Five that encourages female supporters to identify five single women and get them out to vote by contacting them repeatedly before Election Day.
Women's groups are mustering their forces as well. Planned Parenthood helped sponsor a Vaginas Vote, Chicks Rock concert to raise money and awareness last month at the Apollo Theater in New York City. In battleground states last week an organization called Mothers Opposing Bush began running ads featuring Sopranos star Edie Falco talking about failing schools and inadequate health care. In college papers the group is placing ads warning about a reinstatement of the draft unless Kerry wins. Persistent if unsubstantiated rumors of a coming draft may have explained Bush's explicit promise in his closing debate remarks to maintain an all-volunteer force.
The pro-Kerry organizations are lined up against groups like Security Moms 4 Bush and Women in Support of the President. All those women may have at least one thing in common: whatever the outcome on Nov. 2, they are not packing up their political tents. Having discovered their power to move the levers of an election and get the candidates to court them, many are already planning their priorities for the next crusade, which begins Nov. 3. --Reported by Perry Bacon Jr. and Karen Tumulty/with Kerry; Matthew Cooper/ Washington; John F. Dickerson/with Bush; Sarah Sturmon Dale/Minneapolis; Charlotte Faltermayer/ Scotch Plains, N.J.; Eric Roston/Davenport; and Betsy Rubiner/Des Moines