"Live Today" with Daryn Kagan 10/12/05

Transcript from Kellyanne's October 12, 2005 appearance on "Live Today" with Daryn Kagan:

KAGAN: Now, a topic of "What Women Really Want." That's a new book that looks at what the authors describe as the enormous influence that women have on U.S. politics, on the economy, and that's just the beginning of the topics. The authors are very interesting, two women who have crossed the political divide to collaborate on this work.

Celinda Lake, who we have on the right, that's interesting. She's actually a Democratic strategist. And Kellyanne Conway, for the first time in her life, on the left. She is a Republican pollster. Ladies, good morning. Thanks for joining me.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, "WHAT WOMEN WANT": Thank you, Daryn.

CELINDA LAKE, "WHAT WOMEN WANT": Thanks for having us.

KAGAN: First, what a fascinating concept, to think that a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican can get together and collaborate. Who would have thunk, huh?

LAKE: Most of the women of America, actually. Because most of the women of America agree on the issues of the priorities, on getting together to bring about change, and on changing the way we live.

KAGAN: Let's start with the first topic that I know is near and dear to both of your hearts, politics. You have a lot of interesting data in this, including women outvoted men by 10 million in the 2004 election. How are we seeing that changing American politics, Kellyanne?

CONWAY: Well, simply put, women have outvoted men in the elections for the last 20 to 25 years. And although you hear so much about female apathy, particularly among single or younger women, we should not forget that women are literally deciding who's in charge of this country. And that's significant in that you do see both of the campaigns, the major campaigns in presidential years, trying to target women. But they're trying to target different sectors of women: married women, mothers, senior women.

Celinda and I in this book are exploring, a little bit more deeply, some of those voter groups that have not necessarily been focused upon by the major campaigns; namely single women, 22 million of whom live in this country right now. Only 25 percent of them, Daryn, are under the age of 35. So we can't think of 20-year-olds on college campuses or even just widows who are going to vote.

Of course, you have to think of the millions and millions of women literally in the middling years and what's important to them. And we lay out in the book that their agenda is a hers agenda. The acronym stands for healthcare, education, retirement, security.

KAGAN: And one big word, umbrella word, that goes over all of that would be control?

LAKE: Control and peace. We see that women are really trying to either create parallels streams or change the arenas in which they live -- their home, their workplace, their children's schools -- to meet more of their lives, to be more family-friendly, to allow them to make more choices.

One of the most interesting things we found in the book is that women aren't living their lives linearly anymore. They're making their choices. They're trying to have it all, but not all at once. And so women are choosing when to combine work with family, having children later. Many women are facing caretaking responsibilities when they're seniors -- they're care givers, not care receivers.

So there are all kinds of changes out there. And I think one of the most interesting things in today's workplace, you can have a 45- year-old woman who's chosen to be single, a 45-year-old new mom of a 5-year-old and a 45-year-old grandmother all sitting next to each other.

CONWAY: Yes, and this concept of control -- let's not leave the viewers with the idea that women are control freaks and that sort of thing.

KAGAN: No.

CONWAY: We're actually saying