By ZACH HOBSON
STAFF WRITER
During the presidential election season, many women voters in New Jersey voiced their opinion that whoever would be elected had to focus on improving the economy.
As President Obama squared off against Republican Mitt Romney, New Jersey women of seemingly all ages were already very confident that this election’s key issues would deal with lowering unemployment and overcoming the recession.
While the jobless rate dropped below 8 percent, many women still feel the sting of the unemployment crisis.
Erika Thomasen, a 26-year-old Rutgers graduate, stressed just how difficult it has been to find a job, despite her extensive education as a prospective grade school teacher.
“It’s been a nightmare looking for work, but from what I’ve learned of [the two candidates], I feel like voting for Romney would just make things worse.”
The difficulty for recent college graduates in their attempts to find suitable careers is a widespread problem. Even Thomasen’s friend, 25-year-old Quinnipiac University graduate Sonja Wessendorf, has been having some difficulty finding interviews for work as a nurse, but feels
roughly the same way Thomasen does.
“Even though Obama seems like he’s really struggling with creating jobs, Romney doesn’t look like he could do much better,” said Wessendorf.
While that type of thinking appears common among recent college graduates, the older generation of women seems much more varied in its political ideology. Thomasen’s own mother Lynn Thomasen, a 52-year-old from East Hanover, disagrees. “The economy is definitely the big issue, but Obama hasn’t done a good enough job or improved it enough to deserve another term,” she said.
As is usually the case, the oldest generation is never shy to voice its own beliefs. Kay Pedersen, a 79-year-old retiree from Livingston is one woman who admits that she dislikes the president for a number of reasons. “When it comes to the economy,” Pedersen states, “Obama just can’t get the job done. He’s had plenty of time, but he hasn’t improved anything at all.”
While many New Jersey women of all ages would agree with Pedersen’s thoughts, Obama still seems widely popular among the youngest of voters. Among undergraduates on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus, it is not as easy to find anyone who is as openly supportive of Romney as they are of Obama.
Even though Obama’s 2008 campaign, which was centered on “hope” and “change,” have left some young voters cynical as the economy has remained relatively stagnant since Obama’s election, there are still young women
voters who see potential in the president.
Senior political science major Miriam Felzenberg is not completely committed to supporting the president, but she still contends that he is the best choice.
“With Romney as the opposing candidate, I’ll have to vote for Obama. He’s
just the lesser of the two evils,” said Felzenberg.
An even more rampant trend on the campus, though, appears to be the general lack of enthusiasm for the election. Appropriately, the most significant reason for this seems to have to do with the difficulty for young people to break into the job market following their graduation.
“Even if I go for a masters, I just feel like it will be hellish to find decent work once I’m finally done here. I don’t think either candidate can fix this problem anytime soon,” says sophomore history major Amira El-Adle.
Other students seem even more dejected about the candidates running for election. Junior history major Novlette Harris, an admitted “cynic,” admitted that feels like there is not even a point to casting a vote. “It’s just a pointless act, casting my vote. Besides, neither of
[the candidates] has what it takes to fix the economy, anyway. What we really need is a woman.”
While there are many women who support Romney, one thing seems clear: most women in New Jersey are supporting the incumbent’s stance on the economy.
Even a recent Bureau of Labor statistic that shows that 92 percent of job losses under Obama have come at the expense of women does not seem to be convincing enough to change anyone’s voting stance. Karen Erd, a 51-year-old from Succasunna who was familiar with the stat said, “Most of those women lived in red states anyway, with republican governors. One misleading factoid like that shouldn’t be enough to make a woman vote Republican.”
While Erd is convinced that Obama is a better candidate to fix the economy than Romney is, her sister is not as certain. 53-year-old Ruth Kruge, an admittedly “successful” nurse practitioner living in Denville, feels that Obama has done a poor job of helping the nation recover from the
recession. “He stinks as a leader. Then again, Romney seems like he’d be even worse. I’ll probably wind up voting for Obama again, if I vote at all.”
“I’ve been lucky to remain in my own job, making a steady living, but I still worry about potential downsizing. That [92 percent] makes you wonder if these guys care about women’s issues at all,” she added.
Just as many women are confident of the future as they pick who they’ll vote for, there are still many women like Kruge who remain apathetic and even pessimistic about the election. 61-year-old Florence Petouvis, a retired English teacher living in Parsippany, notes that this
election will likely be the most important in recent memory.
“The economy is in such terrible shape right now. I’ll have to vote for Obama because [Romney] just doesn’t seem bright enough.”
The intelligence of the two candidates, just as Petouvis points out, is another common issue that voters are speculating on. This seems especially true when the issue of the economy arises in conversation. 41-year-old Maureen Wagner, an executive secretary working at ADP in Roseland, claims that she is a proud conservative who could not vote for such an “idiot” in Obama, “especially given his failure to help the country out of this economic crisis.”
“How could any sensible person vote for [Obama] after he has lost so many innocent people their jobs,” added Wagner.
While Wagner’s statements are admittedly one-sided, Veronica Dougherty, a 42-year-old history teacher at Morris Hills High School in Rockaway, is confident that she knows precisely why women have become so determined to make the economy the primary issue for this election.
“While the recession has been difficult on the nation in general, women are the ones who have really had to bear the brunt of the economic downturn.”
As someone who follows the recession closely, Dougherty adds, “It’s not surprising that women feel that the economy is the key issue. Proportionally, more women have lost jobs than men, and fewer women than men have gained jobs during the slow economic recovery. [Women] just feel that they have more to lose than most men when it comes to choosing the next president.” |
