Palin energized McCain campaign, but bloom could be off rose soon

Posted on Sat, Sep. 13, 2008
By THOMAS FITZGERALD
The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA -- Some days, it seems that the presidential campaign has morphed into an episode of what could be a new reality TV show: "All About Sarah."

Since she joined the Republican ticket as the vice-presidential candidate 17 days ago, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has helped pack rallies and captured imaginations with her image as a working mom of five, huntress, and whip-cracking fighter against the political establishment.

White women and independents attracted to Palin have given GOP nominee Sen. John McCain newfound momentum, recent polls show, including a Quinnipiac University survey of the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

And with the nation's newest celebrity beside him, McCain has been drawing his biggest crowds yet, driving the campaign discussion, and inspiring optimism among Republicans.

Most important, the choice of Palin, 44, has allowed McCain to try to claim the mantle of "change," and to try to distance himself from President Bush. The McCain campaign has painted Palin as a reformer in Alaska and stressed instances in which he strayed from GOP orthodoxy during his Senate career, such as pushing limits on campaign finance.

By the end of the week, Democratic nominee Barack Obama was stressing his plans for the economy and vowing to hit back against Republican attacks, looking to take back the campaign narrative - and to blunt Sarah-mania.

"She has stolen the show and gotten Obama off message," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Analysts caution that Palin's ride could get bumpier. She has been sheltered by the McCain campaign, performing with a script to friendly crowds, but she will eventually emerge to face voters and the news media on her own.

Palin had her first serious interview late last week with ABC News, during which she contradicted her earlier statements that human activity did not cause global warming and tried to explain away calling the Iraq War "a task that is from God." She also defended asking for federal earmarks for Alaska though she has boasted of fighting such spending as wasteful.

"Sarah Palin has had way more than her 15 minutes of fame," said Karen O'Connor, founder and director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. "She got it because she's a woman with five kids from Alaska. She's different. But now, it's time for some serious scrutiny." O'Connor said the "cumulative effect" of that examination could quiet the buzz.

Still, public-opinion surveys released last week found a significant Palin effect on the GOP ticket.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, for instance, picked up a swing of more than 20 percentage points among white women, a key voting bloc. Before the conventions, white women favored Obama over McCain 50 percent to 42 percent, while afterward favored McCain, 53 percent to 41 percent.

Palin's personal story and her us-versus-the-elitists message has touched a chord with many women who say in that she understands their own struggles to balance life's demands.

"I'm a working mother, and she speaks for me," said Pamela Hamlett, 40, who attended a rally with Palin and McCain last week in Lancaster, Pa. A supervisor at a Home Depot, Hamlett is an independent and a fan of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian who ran in the GOP primaries; she said McCain's choice of Palin won her support.

"She understands what I'm going through," said Hamlett, of Stewartstown, York County, Pa. "I believe that if I sent her to the grocery store, she'd come home with change, and I couldn't say that about Obama. She understands a household budget; she understands a government budget. ... She doesn't come from money. She's someone like me, and we work for every dime we get."

Dottie Hall of Enola, Pa., near Harrisburg, said that she too felt a connection to Palin. Both have sons in the military. Palin's eldest was deployed to Iraq last week and Hall expects her son is heading there too.

She said she going to vote for McCain regardless but said that she noticed more enthusiasm in the local Republican club she leads now that Palin is on the ticket.

"Sarah is empowering," Hall, 55, said in a telephone interview. She added that Palin's lack of experience in Washington politics is a strength. "She won't cower," Hall said. "She owes favors to nobody. She's regular people."

At a Lancaster restaurant, waitress Jessica Olson, 25, called Palin and the tabloid fodder about her infant son and her pregnant teen a "distraction" from the real issues: the economy, health care and education.

Democrats have begun to chip away at Palin, highlighting contradictions to her claims of corruption-fighting. For instance, Palin says she stood up to Congress to refuse federal earmarks for Alaska, when the record shows she sought at least $200 million of them - and did not initially oppose the infamous "bridge to nowhere."

Democrats also are painting Palin as an extremist, noting that she wants abortion to be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest. Vice presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware said Palin represents a "backward step" for women.

Republican strategists said at the time that McCain picked Palin - an admired figure on the religious right - in part to appeal to independents and female voters who supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary.

But polling by EMILY's List has shown that women's favorable initial impression of Palin dropped sharply when they learned her positions on abortion rights, and that many viewed the pick as pandering.

"What he has done is to attach himself to the right wing of the Republican Party," said Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY's List, which works to elect Democratic women. Malcolm argued that McCain took his advantage on experience, as well as his image of being a maverick, "off the table" with a nakedly political decision.

National polling shows that, so far at least, McCain's gamble has paid dividends. A Quinnipiac poll of three battleground states last week - Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida - found that McCain got a Sarah-fueled boost in all of them, though he still trailed in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Pollster Richards said that in Pennsylvania, Palin helped McCain pick up 5 percentage points among white women - moving from 43 percent to 48 percent support - and 7 percentage points among independents, moving from 38 percent to 45 percent. McCain gained 4 percentage points among blue-collar voters, from 46 percent to 50 percent.

Obama increased his support among Catholics and Hillary Clinton voters, Richards said.

For all the interest in Palin, historically vice presidential candidates have had little effect on the outcome. Most voters cast their ballot based on the top of the ticket.

Most Pennsylvania voters surveyed in the Quinnipiac poll agreed, and said that they were most concerned about the economy, health care and energy independence.

"When the debates come, those issues will take over the campaign," Richards said. "I don't think Saraph Palin can last that long as the focus."

(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Larry Eichel and Carolyn Davis contributed to this report.)

Look at her craziness: