Palin's Moderate Appeal?

Asked this afternoon at a Riverside, Ohio, press availability whether the surprise addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket has helped John McCain woo women, Barack Obama said no. "There is no doubt that ... Republicans are excited, particularly the right wing of the party ... by Governor Palin's choice," Obama said. "I think that has less to do with gender than it has to do with her ideological predispositions, which are closely aligned to theirs."

It was a savvy strategic answer, given that Obama's main messaging objective these days is to paint Palin as Pat Robertson with ovaries. But realistically, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Obama is right that the Republican base is excited by Palin; according to Gallup, the number of GOPers saying they're stoked about this year's election jumped to 60 percent yesterday from 42 percent a week ago, a leap that has narrowed the "enthusiasm gap" between the parties from 19 points to 7. But by and large Republicans were already planning to vote for McCain--even if some of them weren't happy about it--and as such can't be said to account for the 10-point postconvention polling swing that now has McCain either tied or ahead of Obama in every available national survey. For that, you'd have to see how McCain's performance improved among people who said they weren't expecting to vote for the Republican ticket before St. Paul, but now say they are.

Which brings us to women--specifically white women. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken ahead of the conventions, Obama was leading among these voters by a robust 8-point margin, 50 percent to 42 percent. But the latest version of the same survey, out yesterday, shows McCain winning white women 53-41. That's a sudden 20-point net shift in McCain's direction. Obama's "analysis"--that a sizable swath of right-wing women were planning to vote for a socially liberal Democrat until they discovered that a social conservative had joined the Republican ticket--is simply irrational. The more logical explanation is that a number of moderate white women who loosely preferred Obama last month are now attracted to Palin not because of her views on abortion and abstinence and creationism in schools but in spite of them (otherwise, they wouldn't be moderates, and they wouldn't be considering Obama). Meanwhile, the latest Gallup survey shows "political independents shifting to [McCain] in fairly big numbers, from 40 percent pre-convention to 52 percent postconvention," while Obama's share of the indepedent vote plunges to 37 percent.

In other words, McCain's new voters are coming from the middle--not the fringe. Despite what Obama says.

Obama underestimates Palin's appeal to moderates--which has more to do with personality than policy--at his own peril. Sure, she's a rock-solid conservative--a fact that, when repeated ad nauseam, will certainly help Obama win back some centrist defectors. And yes, the novelty will wear off and Palin's initial bump will shrink on its own. But the fact that her mere presence in the race--her celebrity, really--has prompted double-digit swings in McCain's direction from the middle of the political spectrum should probably give Chicago pause. Obama may want to make this election about the issues--as well it should be. But given how easily the largely low-information public is swayed by gut-level appeals--a phenomenon that's benefited him as much as anyone--Obama should probably "attack her strength" a la Karl Rove, and make "personality" an issue as well. With that in mind, we'd expect to hear less about Palin's "ideological predispositions" and more about, say, her "naked [Bridge to Nowhere] lies"--Chicago's words, not mine--as Nov. 4 approaches.