The selection of Palin was always intended, in my view, to fire up the Republican base, particularly the religious right which up to then had been very noticeably unenthusiastic about having McCain as the GOP's candidate for president. While McCain cannot win the presidency without the enthusiastic support of the religious right, he cannot win with just them. So while Palin solved one problem that was facing McCain, it's by no means clear that she solves the larger problem that he faces, which is bringing back the independent and Democratic voters who had been enthusiastic about him back in 2000. In fact I suspect that over the course of this election campaign she may well prove to be a detriment to his achieving this larger and necessary objective.
Jim F.
-- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/politics/18poll.html
<begin excerpt>
Polls taken after the Republican convention suggested that Mr. McCain
had enjoyed a surge of support -- particularly among white women after
his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate -- but
the latest poll indicates "the Palin effect" was, at least so far, a
limited burst of interest. The contest appeared to be roughly where it
was before the two conventions and before the vice-presidential
selections: Mr. Obama had the support of 48 percent of registered
voters, compared with 43 percent for Mr. McCain, a difference within
the poll's margin of sampling error, and statistically unchanged from
the tally in the last New York Times/CBS News poll, in mid-August.
<snip>
But the Times/CBS News poll suggested that Ms. Palin's selection has,
to date, helped Mr. McCain only among Republican base voters; there was
no evidence of significantly increased support for him among women in
general. White women were evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr.
Obama; before the conventions, Mr. McCain led Mr. Obama among white
women, 44 percent to 37 percent.
By contrast, at this point in the 2004 campaign, President Bush was
leading Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic challenger,
by 56 percent to 37 percent among white women.
<end excerpt>
Full pdf of results:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20080918_POLL.pdf
CBS/NYT Polls over time:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/whos-ahead/polling/index.html#US_22
Michael ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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