Spokane County GOP launches ad campaign pushing equality for women

Spokane’s local Republican Party launched a $12,000 ad campaign this week touting the GOP as a proponent of equal rights for women.

The “branding campaign,” as Spokane County GOP Chairwoman Stephanie Cates described it, is being rolled out as the local party celebrates Women’s Equality Day on Saturday with a visit from state committee members. The observance marks 98 years since the certification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote and was championed early by Republican lawmakers.

But the campaign is drawing some skepticism from the local Democratic party, who point to recent GOP policy positions and the rhetoric of President Donald Trump as counter to the advertisement’s message.

The campaign – which features Spokane-area women who identify politically as Republican talking about the importance of lower taxes, gun ownership, free speech and school choice – is designed in part to respond to the Women’s March that took place shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Cates said.

“I believe there is no better country to be a woman than the United States of America, and we really want to highlight that,” she said.

Andrew Biviano, chair of the Spokane County Democrats, applauded the local GOP for embracing what he called “its progressive roots” in the video.

“I certainly would have been a Republican if I had been alive in 1860 as well,” Biviano said. He acknowledged the GOP had introduced the 19th Amendment and pushed for its passage, but said the party of today hasn’t embraced those same values in their response to the political violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Trump’s language about women on social media and in a video in which the president bragged about assaulting women.

Cates said women who voted Republican in the latest presidential election – according to exit polls, 42 percent went for Trump – did so because they believed he would fight for their values.

“I don’t want to get into what he’s said about his political enemies,” Cates said of Trump. “He’s said things about men and women. But again, we support this president because he’s going to uphold those values and fight for the rights we care about.”

Biviano said it was impossible to oppose the core values expressed in the advertisement, and that all Americans would support free speech and entrepreneurship.

“I would definitely encourage them to live by the things they say in the video,” he said.

The ads, which will air on local broadcast and cable channels this week, end with Cates proclaiming that the Republican Party is the “Growth and Opportunity Party,” playing on the traditional “Grand Old Party” moniker.

Money for the campaign was raised during the party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner that took place earlier this summer, and featured outspoken young conservative commentator Tomi Lahren as the keynote speaker.

Cates said the ads were not meant to diminish the contributions of the Democratic Party toward women’s suffrage. She credited May Hutton, a Spokane transplant from North Idaho who ran for Democratic office in the early 20th Century and pushed for the right for Washington women to vote.

“Republicans have been fighting for women’s rights since the inception of the women’s suffrage movement, which is not to say that the other party hasn’t done so as well,” Cates said.

Cates said women have continued to be drawn to the Republican Party after the election, and the ad is an illustration why.

“We just wanted to present our positive future for the Republican Party and show that we care about women’s rights,” she said. “We’re getting a really good response on social media so far.”