6-11-08, 2:40 pm

The idea that John McCain will pick up women voters who backed Clinton is 'mythology' and a 'pipe dream,' said Ellen Malcolm, president of Emily's List, a women voter's organization that had strongly endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Malcolm, talking with reporters by teleconference June 11, pledged her organization's effort to mobilize women voters for Barack Obama, especially focusing on educating non-college educated women on the issues.

'Senator McCain is really out of touch with the lives women are leading,' Malcolm stated. 'He's really out of touch with many of the positions they hold.'

Malcolm cited McCain's support for endless war in Iraq and more huge tax breaks for Big Oil along with the fact that he is ignoring the sagging economy and the struggles of women and their families with health care as key reasons to believe McCain will not 'really pay attention to people who need some relief.'

Malcolm also pointed to John McCain's opposition to the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would improve the ability of women workers to seek redress when faced with workplace discrimination. The bill is named after Lily Ledbetter, a Goodyear Tire employee who proved blatant wage discrimination by her supervisors in court only to see her case dismissed by the right-wing dominated Supreme Court.

'(McCain) did nothing to come to her aid,' Malcolm noted. 'In fact, he seemed more concerned about lawsuits and trial attorneys.'

'For those women who are trying to bring home paychecks to their families, Malcolm added, 'they're more concerned about making sure they get paid fairly than the potential for lawsuits.'

Malcolm expressed optimism that as women come to learn more about where McCain and Obama stand on these issues, they will support Obama. 'We're ready to go to work on the general election. We will focus on the goal, which is to change the direction of this country, and we're going to work together to do that,' she said.

Already, polls are showing Obama with as much as a 13-point lead among women voters over McCain. Anna Greenberg, a pollster with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, noted that Obama leads McCain among young women voters by 15 points; among college educated women by 22 points; and among unmarried women by 32 points.

'Right now, Obama is exceeding John Kerry's performance in 2004,' she said. If the trends hold, Greenberg added, Obama could do as well as Democratic presidential candidates did in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections among women voters.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who had also endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary season, suggested to reporters that because of the enormous differences between McCain and Obama on the issues, women voters will flock 'automatically' to Obama.

'There is a real fear that John McCain will be dangerous for women,' she said. 'He will impede our progress if he becomes President of the United States. He is wrong on issues that matter to women most.'

Wasserman Schultz pointed to McCain's opposition to programs that young working mothers need like universal pre-Kindergarten or his proposal for slashing Social Security and Medicare benefits that senior women rely on more than men do as reasons most women voters will refuse to support him.

Wasserman Schultz also described McCain's opposition to the Fair Pay Act as backward as well. 'It's appalling that he would oppose the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But what it really means is that he is opposed to equal pay for equal work,' she stated.

'John McCain is clearly out of touch and insensitive to the needs and the plight of women,' the south Florida congresswoman argued.

'There are some women in America who think John McCain is a moderate,' she emphasized. 'He is the furthest thing from moderate, and particularly on a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices.' McCain has pledged to overturn Roe V. Wade and supports a Constitutional ban on all abortions, Wasserman Schultz said.

Economic issues like the subprime mortgage crisis and the minimum wage increase affect working women disproportionately, she continued. John McCain opposed comprehensive legislation that would help working families keep their homes. McCain also voted against the minimum wage raise Congress passed in 2007.

'When it comes right down to it, in order to advance the progress women have made, the last thing in the world that women need to do is to vote for John McCain,' Wasserman Schultz said. She pledged to campaign vigorously to help Obama win the presidency and to educate women voters on the issues.

Responding to reporters' questions, Wasserman Schultz also noted that the media treated Hillary Clinton in a sexist way, but rejected the idea that Obama was to blame. 'I don't think Senator Obama was sexist in this campaign,' she said. 'Not at all.'

'When he talks about the things that really matter to women, that is what will win them over and warm them to him,' she added.

Agreeing with Wasserman Schultz's assessment of Obama, Malcolm predicted that women's responses to the media's sexist treatment of Clinton would promote a new anti-sexist consciousness among women.

--Reach Joel Wendland at