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It is no surprise that the president took that position. It's one he has
stuck to throughout the campaign. (Well, he did try to soften that stance a
bit in the second debate. He admitted he had made some mistaken appointments,
but of course he couldn't name them or it would hurt those people's
feelings.) His "Mistakes? Never touch the stuff!" approach is part
of the hypermasculine persona he tries to put
forth, along with his stay-the-course, go-it-alone, never-waver profile.
How is that stance likely to be received by female voters? Democrats and
Republicans alike have set their sights on winning women's votes come Nov. 2.
Historically, more women than men vote (eight million more in 2000) and a
larger percentage of women vote Democratic (in 2000, by 11 percentage points
for Al Gore while men preferred Mr. Bush by 11 percentage points). To raise
the stakes, a poll conducted recently by Time magazine found that 61 percent
of undecided voters were women. That's why, many people think, Mr. Kerry
appeared on "Live With Regis and Kelly," and why Mr. Bush has begun
talking about how the overthrow of the Taliban has helped Afghan women.
Perhaps it was not by chance that it was a woman who asked the president,
at the town hall debate last Friday, to list three instances in which he had
made wrong decisions since taking office. If women react to Mr. Bush's
made-no-mistake tactic the way they react to it when it is used by men in
their lives, a majority may well be more angered than reassured. That's
because it drives many women nuts when men won't say they made a mistake and
apologize if they do something wrong. I'm reminded of a woman who was angry
at her husband because she had given him an important letter to mail and he'd
assured her he'd mail it, then told her the next
day, "I forgot to mail your letter," and stopped there. She waited
in vain for the sentence to continue, "I'm sorry." In the end, she
was angry not about the letter but about the missing apology.
Many men learn, from the time they're children, to avoid apologizing,
because it entails admitting fault, and that's risky for them. Boys have to
be on their guard against appearing weak - either literally, by losing
fights, or figuratively, in the way they speak - because if they act or talk
in ways that show weakness, other boys will take advantage and push them
around.
But refusing to apologize infuriates women because that makes it seem as
if the guy doesn't care that he let her down, and if he doesn't care, there's
no reason to think he won't do it again. This is the negative effect - the
collateral damage - that Mr. Bush's "certainty" is certain to have
on many women: if he won't admit he made a mistake in his handling of Iraq,
it seems he doesn't care about the American soldiers killed and maimed, the
civilians beheaded, about the Iraqi children blown up by insurgents' bombs.
The role of talk about "mistakes" in the rhetoric of the debate
was particularly striking when Mr. Bush intoned, and repeated, that no one
will follow a president who says the war was a mistake. With this, he tried,
aikido-like, to pin on his opponent the stigma of association with the word
"mistake," even as the stigmatizing mistakes were not Mr. Kerry's,
but those of which Mr. Kerry accused him. (It made me think of the children's
taunt, "I am rubber, you are glue, anything you say bounces off me and
sticks to you.") It's a clever manipulation of language.
Will it work? Probably with fewer women than men, because most women don't
regard admitting fault as a liability. Instead, they value it as a sign of
caring - and a necessary prerequisite to maintain credibility. The British
Labor Party seems to regard this as true for the British electorate; Tony
Blair, in order to keep his party's support, had to admit publicly last month
that he was wrong about his reasons for going to war. Similarly, in the
election-changing debate between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President
Richard Nixon, Nixon insisted that the
If Mr. Bush's made-no-mistake bravado can be understood by looking to the
power struggles of boys at play, when cornered, he often plays the
mischievous but lovable child - a little boy so cute, so charming, you really
can't be mad at him. On Friday night, he displayed that coy persona in first
saying, "I'm not telling," when asked about possible Supreme Court
appointments. But the charming little boy will probably also undercut his
credibility if he reminds mothers of their own little boys who insist,
"I didn't eat the cookie - he did!" even as cookie crumbs are
clinging to their chins.
In his campaign appearances, Mr. Bush has been saying that what matters
isn't caring but doing. This may be an attempt to deal with the
"compassion gap" that has long dogged Republicans, and has widened
under the Bush administration. But caring is the prerequisite for doing, and
that's why many women value apologies and admitting mistakes.
Appeal to women will surely be at the forefront of both candidates' minds
in tomorrow night's debate, since domestic issues like jobs and health care
are believed to be a top priority among female voters. It will be interesting
to see if the president is asked the mistake question about these issues as
well, and, if he is, how he chooses to respond.
Deborah Tannen, a professor oflinguistics at Georgetown University, is the author,
most recently, of" I Only Say This Because I Love You."