Audience members look on as President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum, on Friday.WASHINGTON – Heading into President Barack Obama’s final midterm election in the White House, Democrats on Friday sought to energize female voters, pointing to women as key to the party’s future.
“We do better when we field the whole team. When women succeed, America succeeds,” Obama said at an annual forum sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.
Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton headlined the daylong Women’s Leadership Forum aimed at generating excitement for the party’s candidates. Democrats are trying to hold onto a slim majority in the Senate and are defending several female incumbents — Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire — while seeking to mobilize women, who typically vote in smaller numbers in nonpresidential elections.
The president said the economy had made strides since the recession, telling more than 500 of the party’s top female donors that voters would see two different visions for America’s future in the elections. Republicans, the president said, would offer an agenda that would help the wealthy, big banks and polluters while Democrats had sought to give people a “fair shot.”
Republicans, who run the House and are vying for Senate control, said Obama and his allies were spending “all of their time pointing fingers at others” instead of seeking solutions for women. “Voters are now turning on the Democrats,” said Kirsten Kukowski, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman.