Republican women on and off the yacht.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: The gender gap and the GOP - Crashing the Parties - Cover Story

It is perversely fascinating to watch the Republican Party attempt to fill in the "gender gap" and mollify female voters.

At a special "Salute to Women" luncheon at the San Diego convention, the Singing Senators, led by Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, serenaded a roomful of female delegates and elected officials from around the country with "Hey, Good Lookin'." Tables at the entrance to the ballroom were heaped with cookbooks and GOP aprons.

"I'm so glad to be singing for this audience," Lott's aide and fraternity brother Guy Hovis told the assembled women, before bursting into a lounge-act rendition of "That's What Friends Are For." "Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, `cause that's what friends are for," Hovis sang, extending his arms toward the audience. "You're beautiful . . . you're our party's heart and soul and I believe we love you."

It's no secret that the Republicans are having a little public-relations problem with women. The problem is bigger than the obvious rift over the radical anti-abortion plank in the platform. The cultural message of the party--including the rhetoric that went over so poorly at the Houston convention in 1992 attacking single mothers and modern immorality--plays particularly badly with women. Polls also show that women are leery of deep budget cuts, and for some reason are just not drawn to Bob Dole (perhaps, an anonymous Dole adviser suggested to the Dallas Morning News, because of the "unresolved meanness issue").

So the Republicans are trying to soften their image, working Elizabeth Dole overtime giving speeches about "the man I love," and keeping pro-life culture warriors like Pat Buchanan out of the spotlight.

Still, despite the party's efforts to smooth things over with the ladies, the anti-feminist message keeps slipping out, like the return of the repressed.

DITCH THE BITCH, DITCH THE FIRST BITCH, DITCH THE WITCH, DITCH THE BITCH IN '96, a stack of bumper stickers declared in the storefront of what is usually a furniture upholstery business outside the San Diego convention hall. A T-shirt featuring Hillary Rodham Clinton's head on top of a dog's body hung in the window. The guy who runs the upholstery shop looked embarrassed when I asked why his merchandise was so hard on the First Lady.

"None of it is mine," he told me. "I got it all on consignment." He pointed out that there was one T-shirt that showed the President arm-in-arm with the Three Stooges. Still, he had to concede, the rest of his merchandise all focused on Hillary. "I guess they're saying she more or less runs the White House rather than Bill," he said.

Inside the convention hall I approached a guy wearing a DITCH THE BITCH T-shirt--Dale Olson, a substitute teacher from Bakersfield, California. He responded shyly when I asked about his shirt. "Well, sometimes I wish it was a `W' instead of a `B,"' he said, blushing. "I didn't realize how a lot of women would find that word offensive...