Outside the Beltway

Security Moms and a Shrinking Base

James Joyner · Wednesday, July 21, 2004 · 4 comments

Michele Malkin has an op-ed in USA Today column entitled “Candidates ignore ‘security moms,’ at their peril.”

I am what this year’s election pollsters call a “security mom.” I’m married with two young children. I own a gun. And I vote. Nothing matters more to me right now than the safety of my home and the survival of my homeland. I believe in the right to defend myself, and in America’s right to defend itself against its enemies. I am a citizen of the United States, not the United Nations. I want a president who is of one mind, not two, about what must be done to protect our freedom and our borders. I don’t care about the hair on his head or the wrinkles in his forehead. I am not awed by his ability to ride a snowboard or fly a plane. Nor does it matter much to me whether his wife speaks four languages or bakes good cookies. What I want is a commander in chief who will stop pandering to political correctness and People magazine editors, and start pandering to me.

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I am not alone. Professors and political analysts have observed the remarkable conversion of “soccer moms” to “security moms” since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to GOP pollster David Winston, “security moms” now make up between 11% and 14% of the electorate. The trend has manifested itself in increased concealed-weapons-permit applications among women; the rise of national-security-focused Web logs published by hard-hitting female “war bloggers”; and an upsurge in political activism by women on core homeland-defense issues, such as immigration enforcement.

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So far, neither presidential ticket quite measures up. Judging from the touchy-feely-fest put on by the John Kerry-John Edwards campaign recently, it is clear that the Democratic Party still thinks it can win by wallowing in the Sept. 10 politics of grievance, entitlement and passivity. The Democratic presidential campaign is softer than a Kleenex tissue, when its motto should be “No More Tears.” As for the Republicans, I have supported President Bush’s war on terror overseas, but he continues to fight only a half-hearted battle to defend Americans on American soil from hostile invasion or attack. Recently, the White House revived an amnesty plan for millions of illegal aliens, and the Department of Homeland Security retreated on immigration-enforcement sweeps in Southern California. It is clear that the GOP elite gravely underestimates the wrath we security moms feel toward Washington’s fatal addiction to “cheap labor” and “cheap votes” at the expense of secure borders.

To paraphrase the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher: Gentlemen, this is no time to go warm and fuzzy. Security moms will never forget that toddlers and schoolchildren were incinerated in the hijacked planes on Sept. 11. Murderous Islamic fanatics will stop at nothing to do the same to our kids. As they plot our death and destruction, these enemies will not be won over by either hair-sprayed liberalism or bleeding-heart conservatism.

Neither will we.

This is in stark contrast to a long WaPo piece entitled “The Shrinking Base,” which cites anecdotal evidence that some traditional Republican voters are disenchanted with President Bush because of his over-focus on security matters, especially, the war in Iraq. For the most part, the piece strings together a handful of quotes from Reservists and their families who are angry they had to disrupt their lives to go to war.