As India is gearing up for Lok Sabha polls a few weeks away, a major campaign is being conducted in the electronic media to promote awareness among citizens about the importance of their right to vote. Well known public personalities have been roped in to tell people that their vote is an expression of self-respect and a democratic right to speak their mind about governance. However, this campaign, compared to the one launched by US President Joe Biden to drum up support for him in the November presidential election, appears too stereotyped and bland. In contrast, the campaign managers of Biden have fielded two ordinary women to speak to fellow-countrymen and women, drawing upon their own personal experiences. The novel electoral campaign is already getting traction since the women have been shuttling from one state to another to articulate their views on a key issue that Biden and his Democratic Party have made their main election plank – the federal restrictions on abortion.
Amanda Zurawski of Texas and Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana say their personal experiences are driving them to campaign for Biden in North Carolina and Wisconsin over the next two weeks. Zurawski had gone into premature labour, developed sepsis and nearly died and Joshua had been prevented from getting medical help for a miscarriage. Their unspeakable sufferings, they say, were due to the federal restrictions on abortion. The Biden campaign finds in their stories powerful firsthand accounts of the growing medical peril for many women as abortion restrictions pushed by Republicans complicate health care.
The two women are sharing with the voters their personal traumatic experiences caused by the ruling of the Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade case that abolished the ban on abortion. The judges appointed by Biden’s rival Donald Trump during his tenure as President played a crucial role in the judgement.
The Democrats have drawn up their election strategy for Biden in such a manner that one of the main electoral issues seems to have got a fresh lease of life from these two women. Thirty-one year-old Joshua is telling the people that abortion is “a very heavy topic” and her understanding is that “the Biden and Harris administration is the only administration that could do anything remotely close to addressing the abortion bans and understanding women’s health in general.”
Such is the force of the campaign that Republicans are now clueless as to how to tackle the issue. Trump, who had taken credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade case, is now on the back foot and has promised to make a statement outlining his policies this week.
Support for abortion access drove women to the polls during the 2022 midterm elections helping Democrats make unexpected electoral gains. According to an opinion poll, about two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, about one-quarter say abortion should always be legal and only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal. Joshua and Zurawski say they felt compelled to get into politics after their own experiences. People do not realise how bad it is nor do they figure out how bleak it is, says Zurawski and asserts the more she and Joshua continue to share their stories, the more awareness of the problem would spread.
Biden and the Democrats have found a novel method of sending out powerful messages to the electorate by letting the voters tell their life stories to endorse and condemn government policies of the incumbent and its challenger respectively. Here is a lesson for Indian politicians campaigning full throttle for the LS polls.