Divorced Female Gen Xer?

     If you're a divorced woman from 29 to 47, with or without kids, you've got some clout you may not be aware of. Generational expert Ann Fishman thinks you hold the key to the next presidential election. "If you're a divorced Gen X woman, you've got all the power in the world right now," she said.

"They are the swing vote," said Fishman, president of Generational-Targeted Marketing Corp., which helps companies market to the six different generations in America today. "They are central to the election, but no one is paying attention to them."                                  

Women of that age are part of a generation known as Generation X, a generation that Fishman describes as honest, straight foward, market-savvy, self-sufficient and practical. Fishman, an adjunct associate professor at New York University's Marketing and Management Institute, calls this group of men and women the "generation of divorce." "Divorce painted a wide stroke with this generation," she said.

"If they weren't from divorced households, they might as well have been," Fishman said. "Both their parents were working. They were latchkey kids. They had to raise themselves." In addition, according to Fishman, divorce affected them in other ways. "If it didn't happen to them, it happened to their friends. They really do understand the ramifications of divorce," he said.

Both Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are Gen Xers. "(Gen Xer's) are the first generation that's gender nuetral and colorblind," Fishman said. "There's nothing that would make a Gen Xer happier than putting or an African-American into office. But (they're) not going to vote based on that. (They're) going to decide who is the best qualified person for the job."

They don't care, she said, "if it's a man or a woman" or "a Morman or a Catholic" as long as they can do the job. "They're going to brutally dissect the candidates" looking for the one that "gives them the brutal news straight." "They're going to gravitate toward the most honest candidate," she said

The women of Generation X are non-traditional people who love their family and may consider their friends closer than blood relatives. They may never have married for fear of divorce or have gotten married and divorced and have never remarried. They may have children or not. They haven't had the traditional support systems that other generations had -- family, government programs for the disadvantaged. "They've had to fend for themselves," she said. "They're self reliant and practical. They're not idealists."

And, "They expect you to deliver on your marketing promises. Burn them once, lose them forever," Fishman writes about them on her Web site.

Fishman, who has worked with such companies as Time Warner Cable, PBS-TV and Allstate Financial, said Gen Xer's have no brand loyalty, meaning they will vote in a presidential election for the "best candidate for the job," regardless of their chosen political party. They are looking for "the candidates who stay most true to themselves," she said. 

Divorced Gen X woman are searching for a list of qualities in the candidates: authenticity, straight talk and honesty, interest in taking care of future generations, the courage to tackle tough problems and the ability to come up with practical solutions. And who would divorced Gen X women vote for? Fishman didn't want to side on either political fence. But her thoughts on how the candidates are viewed by that group may give an indication.

Fishman said Gen Xer's may not agree with individual issues of the Republican candidates, an anti-abortion stance for example, but they will consider John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin "doers," which makes them appealing in the ballot box. Why? McCain was in the military and fought for his country. And Palin is raising five children while holding down a job.

Palin, in particular, has "a sense of authenticity," Fishman said. McCain "says what he thinks," she said. But divorced Gen Xer's will examine Democratic candidate Barack Obama's call for "change" and wonder what kind of change and if that will be good or bad for the country. As for Biden, she said, he's an unknown for Gen Xer's.

According to the U.S. Census, 36 percent of the voters in the 2004 presidential election were single -- meaning they were never married, widowed or divorced.    

Victor Greto, an assistant professor of political science at Wesley College in Biden's home state of Delaware, isn't so sure about Fishman's predictions involving divorced Gen X women. "I don't think that they'll be the swing vote in this election, but John McCain's vice-presidential choice, Sarah Palin, may bring some of their interests -- and their attention -- into play in the presidential race."

"After Hillary Clinton's Democratic primary defeat by Barack Obama, some of these women may be directing their attention toward Palin as a person with whom they can relate or understand," said Greto, a former journalist who covered the 2004 presidential campaign. "But only up to a point. Palin is doggedly married, a conservative Christian and anti-abortion. We don't know if the voting preference of divorced women from 29-47, with or without kids, will be based on gender more than those hot-button issues."

"Voting is more often than not a visceral act," he said, "especially for those who walk into the booth undecided. Gender may trump these other issues for those women not invested in an ideology that is conventionally liberal or conservative."

Greto pointed to a ABC News poll in early September which suggested partisanship, not gender, was a better predictor of voter attitudes toward Palin. While the polls don't address women who are Gen Xer's or divorced, he said they do show that "...Women, in general, are not streaming to McCain because of the Palin pick. Perhaps the most interesting thing...is that women may pick McCain at the last minute (if they're truly undecided) because of gender. But I'm guessing this will not make that much of a difference overall," he said.

Regardless of the polls, Fishman believes it's not unusual for Gen Xer's to swing the election bar. An example, she said, is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger. Gen Xer's put him in office, because they didn't think former Gov. Gray Davis was doing the job and decided in the recall election that a businessman like Schwarzennegger might be better at it, she said.

She believes the issues divorced Gen Xer's want candidates to tackle are Social Security, Medicare and Health Care, because Baby Boomers will leave them with nothing. They will focus, she thinks, on which candidate "is really going to make it a focus" to address those problems, even though so far neither side seems willing to tackle them.

Between the economy and the other issues, Gen Xer's have "been handed a country that's not in the greatest of shapes," she said. Gen Xer's look at those issues with "cold eyes," meaning they're "not afraid of facing the problems."