Republican Senate candidates are learning how to improve their messaging with women voters and hoping for a gaffe-free 2014, according to the Huffington Post.
A former deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney (R), Katie Packer Gage, founded a firm with the sole purpose of training GOP Senate candidates to not make major gaffes when talking to or about women, according to the Huffington Post.
Gage helped the National Repulican Senatorial Committee bring its candidates up to speed on messaging on issues that impact women. The training “focused on how to talk about the Republican philosophy of limited government and talk about it in a way that women will respond to,” Gage said.
She emphasized that the training was not about “women’s issues.”
“We do not like the phrase women’s issues, because we think all issues are women’s issues,” Gage told the Huffington Post.
She told the Huffington Post that GOP candidates, such as Virginia GOP gubernatiorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, try involve their wives in their campaigns to appeal to women voters, which doesn’t work.
“That’s the problem we have,” Gage said. “The minute we want to talk about women, you want to trot out your wife, assemble a women for Cuccinelli group. That’s not what women care about.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee has also been training its candidates on how to communicate with voters when running against a woman, hoping to avoid major gaffes like the comment former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) made about “legitimate rape” that ruined his Senate campaign against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO).
