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HenchPAC NewsYORKTOWN - When Hillary Rodham Clinton began her U.S. Senate campaign, Democratic and even Republican women formed her natural constituency, a crucial group she could count on for support.
It was no accident that after confirming in late winter 1999 that she was considering a Senate bid, the first New York audience Clinton spoke to was an all- female one.
"Isn't it about time New York State sent a woman to the United States Senate?" the Democratic Party's chairwoman, Judith Hope, told a cheering crowd of 1,000 women that early March day at a Manhattan hotel ballroom.
Yet after working the state for more than a year, Clinton is finding it an increasingly uphill challenge to lure to her side what is likely to be a swing group of voters: white women.
Recent polls show that her standing among white women, which first began showing up as a real problem late last year, is only getting worse.
The situation has some of her New York advisers growing increasingly worried, they acknowledge privately, as Election Day approaches.
Clinton is overwhelmingly supported by black women. But more white women prefer her opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Rick A. Lazio, even though polls show her promoting issues - from education to health care - that white women say they care about most.
Publicly, her advisers said they are not worried, that in the end, white women will come back to her by November. Privately, though, several advisers said the campaign is facing a serious task. It needs to attract not only the soccer moms, but also older women and "pink-collar" white women who are not college educated and work in lower-paying jobs.
"If the white women's vote doesn't break her way, it's obviously a big, big problem," said one Democratic strategist working on the campaign.
The reasons vary, according to interviews with political consultants, pollsters, independent experts and women voters.
But for many white women, the reluctance to cozy up to Clinton seems to be as much about her personality as it is her philosophical beliefs. And the criticisms of her by white women appear to be years in the making, not the kind of feelings that can be easily turned around by television ads or campaign fliers.
For some white women, the central issue is her ties to eight years of the Clinton White House, even though President Clinton still ranks high in polls among women in New York.
"I don't like her politics," said Martha Taj, a Williamsville Democrat interviewed last week in downtown Buffalo. "President Clinton misled the nation. She's just as involved in it as he is. We don't need someone like that."
Despite the passage of time, many women interviewed and responding to polls say they have not been able to get beyond her marital strife with her husband, highlighted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal that eventually led to his impeachment.
From young professionals to senior citizens, several women questioned the handling of her marriage.
"I would have had more respect for her if she would not have stuck by him," said Megan Molloy, a 25-year-old married West Seneca Republican. "I don't like him and I don't trust her."
Others, however, find reason to listen and see what Clinton offers.
Sharon Mortin of Derby said Clinton's association with her husband and Johnny-come-lately residency were pluses.
"I have some reservations because of her association with a presidency that had such adverse publicity," she said. "But the way they both held up and faced their accusers changed my mind."
Mortin, 59, a married college graduate who works as a disability examiner for the state, said she is a Democrat with conservative views.
"She's really found out what Western New York's problems are. She's done her homework," Mortin said. "All of our representatives are from New York City. They don't know our problems. She's going to be more of an advocate than Lazio."
"Carpetbagger' sticking?
Many women also question her sudden interest in New York affairs and a New York address.
"I feel we'd be better served by someone with a strong affiliation with the area," said Maureen Marshall, a 47-year-old West Seneca independent who also said she disagrees with Clinton on abortion and "family values."
Others complained about her trying to ride her husband's coattails, while some talked of her in ways some men complain about women - such as being too aggressive.
A number of women interviewed at a shopping center in Yorktown in Westchester County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans as they do statewide, expressed strong feelings toward Clinton. That is something few voters have had any real time to do with Lazio in his young campaign since New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani dropped out.
"I just don't like her. I think she's kind of crooked with all that Whitewater stuff and other things. And she's married to Bill Clinton," said Frances Scheuerman, a senior citizen and independent from nearby Putnam County.
"I just think she's a phony," said Donna Gregorio, a married Republican from Mohegan Lake in Westchester County who often votes Democratic. Gregorio said it's not Clinton's politics that keep her from supporting the first lady - "I just can't relate to her."
But supporters can be found as well, such as Faith Kasanofsky, a housewife and independent voter from Croton in Westchester County. "She's extremely intelligent and handles herself beautifully," she said. "I would actually like to see a woman with her gusto working for us in the Senate."
Diverse views
If anything, the New York Senate race this year is serving to shatter a common political
misconception that women will blindly support women candidates.
"Women are as homogeneous as men are, which is to say they aren't homogeneous at all," said Elizabeth Sherman, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "Women have much more divergent interests than ever before because they are working in so many different kinds of professions."
As a result, she said, women no longer vote along gender lines, but by party identification or for whatever candidates appeal to their broader personal and professional interests - just like men.
Indeed, Hillary Rodham Clinton has her supporters among white women, in part because she has been a strong supporter of women's rights.
"But then others feel she's manipulative, that maybe she's too self-interested, that she is maybe trying to use the Senate race just to advance her own career and maybe not the interests of New Yorkers," Sherman said.
Numbers look bad
The major polling organizations find Clinton's problems among white women getting worse.
In early 1999, as she was ruminating about running, 81 percent of Democratic women supported her. A year later, when she had become candidate Clinton, the Marist College poll found that support had slipped to 67 percent.
A poll out two weeks ago by Quinnipiac College, meanwhile, shows her favorability ratings among New York women at their lowest level: dropping from 61 percent favorable among all women in February 1999 to 28 percent this month.
Douglas Schwartz, Quinnipiac's polling director, said Clinton is faring worst among white women who are older, or have no college education or who live in the New York City suburbs, where she is losing to Lazio 62 to 31 percent among white women.
When African-American and Latino women are factored in, Clinton beats Lazio statewide 50 to 39 percent. But when only white women are polled, Lazio is ahead 47 to 41 percent.
Adding to her problem is the fact that Lazio's strength among white Republican women is stronger, 78 to 11 percent, than Clinton's backing among white Democratic women, 66 to 23 percent.
White women pick winners
What makes white women so crucial in the Senate race is that, according to Schwartz, they
have shifted back and forth across party lines during the past few statewide elections.
"The key thing over the last decade is that white women have been on the winning side in New York State elections," he said.
Clinton's supporters say what they like most about her is her intelligence, followed by her stand on education and her strength or courage, Schwartz said. Eight percent said they support her because she's a woman.
Among those who dislike her, concerns over the carpetbagger issue, questions about her honesty and handling of marital problems lead the list.
Besides gender problems with some male voters, Clinton also must face some white women voters who just don't think politics is a place for some women.
Anna Greenberg, a Harvard University professor who specializes in public opinion and gender politics, said a poll she did for an Internet site found most women don't believe a first lady should be taking on nontraditional jobs, such as running for Senate.
"The assumption that women candidates should have an easier time with women voters is a mistake," she said.
That is not news to Gayle Syposs, who ran for her first political job on the City of Tonawanda Common Council back in 1973. Consistently over the years in seven subsequent races, she said, she always had to work harder to convince women voters - particularly middle-aged ones - to back her.
"I don't know whether they felt threatened, or if it was a feeling that they're not in this racket so how could I be in it, or whether I should be home with the kids," said Syposs, now a deputy commissioner with the Erie County Board of Elections.
"Women are nobody's natural supporter. . . . They don't have blind loyalty," Syposs said.
Stressing women's issues
It's not that Clinton hasn't been trying with women.
Downstate, she pushes abortion rights. Upstate, she talks economy. All around the state, she pushes education, health care and gun control. She has spoken out about gender equity at the United Nations, promoted breast cancer research on Long Island and called for an end to the international prostitution trade.
Her spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said that, in the end, women "will realize that Hillary is the right choice."
Other supporters say many voters aren't focused on the race, despite its high media interest, and won't be until after Labor Day. After that, the differences between the two campaigns on issues important to women will be made clearer, Clinton advisers say.
"I think you will see Hillary Clinton's numbers rise," said Suzy Ballantyne, the top political strategist at the state AFL-CIO.
But Clinton critics say the damage is too far along for her to recapture the lost white female support. White conservative women already oppose her for a host of policy reasons, such as abortion. Many white liberal women question whether Clinton is just "an opportunistic feminist," said Barbara Ledeen, executive director for policy at the right-leaning Independent Women's Forum in suburban Washington, D.C. The group is heavily financed by billionaire Richard Scaife, a well-known Clinton detractor.
"She's not an authentic woman with authentic family values who has an authentic point of view," Ledeen said.
But Susan Przybylak, a married, 28-year-old independent voter from Sloan, while troubled by some aspects of the first lady, may offer the kind of hope Clinton needs to appeal to white women as the campaign heats up.
"I'm troubled by her past, with her husband and the allegations about Whitewater," she said. "If she had an agenda by sticking with (President Clinton), it was to promote her career. But I'm willing to listen."
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