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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Palin and the women's vote

Democrats have been reacting to the idea that the pick of Sarah Palin would help McCain with disaffected Hillary voters. Lanny Davis, who knows something about Hillary voters, argues that women who supported Hillary care about an issue like abortion and would never vote for a pro-life ticket of McCain and Palin. The New York Times wonders if Hillary supporters can still cross off her name and write in Sarah.
Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.

Not. So. Fast.
I agree that most Hillary Clinton supporters will not go over to McCain. They might have toyed with John McCain but they will end up voting for the Democrat. I suspect that their decision to support Obama accounts for much of the bump that Obama has enjoyed in the polls since the Democratic convention ended.

However, I don't think that disaffected Democratic voters are the prime target that McCain was aiming at with his choice of Sarah Palin. I think he was thinking of two different constituencies. One was the conservative base. They were mostly less than lukewarm in their support of John McCain. And boy are they fired up now. This was probably the only thing that McCain could have done to have gotten the Rush Limbaugh listeners fully on board. And they are showing their enthusiasm by having donated 7 million dollars by the day after the choice to the McCain/Palin campaign. There is anecdotal evidence all over the blogosphere and talk radio of people saying that they were unenthusiastic about McCain but now they want to put a sign up and go volunteer. These are just the people that McCain desperately needed to man the get out the vote efforts for the election. Without them, he had little chance of matching the GOTV efforts that helped Bush win in 2004. So he can check off the solidifying the base box on his to-do list. If he enjoys any sort of bounce in the next few days it will be because conservatives are coming back to McCain.

But there is another group out there that McCain needs to appeal to. It's not the Hillary voters, but the independent vote. And McCain and Obama have been tussling over that block in the middle of voters who don't really line up with either party. Think of them as the Reagan Democrats. And Palin gives McCain a real chance to pick up some independent white women voters that he was not succeeding with previously. Gallup broke down the gender gap among independent voters and showed that, according to all their polling in August, McCain was winning substantially, 51% to 35%, among non-Hispanic white independent men, but was virtually tied, 42% to 41%, among those non-Hispanic white women.
There is a significant gender gap in American presidential politics today, but it is confined for the most part to white voters who are politically independent. There is very little difference in presidential vote choice by gender among blacks and Hispanics, and among whites who are Republican or Democratic in their political identification.

Many assume that McCain's choice of a female running mate could increase his chances among female voters. If that is the case, it would appear that white independent women -- who are currently split almost down the middle in terms of their candidate support -- would be most susceptible to changing sides, given the strongly skewed (and gender-neutral) existing vote choice among blacks, Hispanics, and loyal partisans.
Elections are fought over those voters in the middle. Whichever candidate can win the independent voter in the middle will have the best chance of winning the election. And if Sarah Palin can help McCain win over some of those independent women, she will accomplish just what McCain needed.

If she can connect with those Reagan Democrats in states like Michigan and Ohio that she understands their problems and knows what those working mothers are concerned about then she will help John McCain to answer Obama's charge that McCain just doesn't get it. When she starts telling stories about being married to a union worker who goes out to work on Alaska's North Slope, she has the opportunity to make connections that none of the three other main candidates can equal. She'll be able to match Joe Biden story for story about growing up as the daughter of an elementary school teacher, working for the PTA and then deciding to enter politics so that she could fight for ordinary people.

And any attacks that the Democrats launch against her experiences will risk alienating just those sorts of voters that Obama needs to win.

Heather MacDonald chides McCain for succumbing to identity politics by picking a woman as a token candidate supposedly to appeal to women. Scott Orr isn't so sure that she was picked just because she is a woman and thinks that her image as a reformer fighting against corruption is what appealed to McCain.
I think Mac Donald is invoking utopian standards that give short shrift to Palin's bona fide politcal appeal. The political considerations that support Palin's selection are legitimate. This is an elective office we're talking about, after all. Indeed, Mac Donald's article is pushing me in the opposite direction. All things considered, including her political views, her record in office, her personal attributes, her complementarity with John McCain and her authentic appeal, Sarah Palin may be the best person for the job.
Lisa Schiffren answers the critics who see Palin as just a token.
Is it irresponsible to put a half-term governor in the vice presidential slot? It depends on her record. But surely for a Washington novice, the vice presidency is more appropriate than the presidency. A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. Palin is a woman of action, moreover, who has used her political capital at every stage to fight corruption and bad policy. It’s hard to find anyone in politics who does that; pols “save” their capital instead, as Obama has done by voting “present” on numerous occasions, lest spending it cost them something somewhere down the road. Her personal profile—raising five children, hunting, fishing, and being a real NRA member—make an appealing contrast with the overly cerebral, political calculations of those who merely hold positions and whose lives have been led in the service of their résumés.
Personally, I'm not as interested in having a candidate who is like me or has lived a life similar to mine, but I bet that there are a whole lot of people in some of those key swing states who remember Obama's putdown of people in small towns turning bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. Her mere biography is a rebuke to that sort of misunderstanding of what people in small towns think like. And if she can help McCain increase his support among independent women then this may turn out to be the first time when a vice presidential pick actually had a determining effect on the election since John Kennedy picked up Texas by choosing Lyndon B. Johnson.
Labels: Sarah Palin

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:47 PM 0 comments

Comments:

Democrats have been reacting to the idea that the pick of Sarah Palin would help McCain with disaffected Hillary voters. Lanny Davis, who knows something about Hillary voters, argues that women who supported Hillary care about an issue like abortion and would never vote for a pro-life ticket of McCain and Palin. The New York Times wonders if Hillary supporters can still cross off her name and write in Sarah.

Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights.

Not. So. Fast.

I agree that most Hillary Clinton supporters will not go over to McCain. They might have toyed with John McCain but they will end up voting for the Democrat. I suspect that their decision to support Obama accounts for much of the bump that Obama has enjoyed in the polls since the Democratic convention ended.

However, I don't think that disaffected Democratic voters are the prime target that McCain was aiming at with his choice of Sarah Palin. I think he was thinking of two different constituencies. One was the conservative base. They were mostly less than lukewarm in their support of John McCain. And boy are they fired up now. This was probably the only thing that McCain could have done to have gotten the Rush Limbaugh listeners fully on board. And they are showing their enthusiasm by having donated 7 million dollars by the day after the choice to the McCain/Palin campaign. There is anecdotal evidence all over the blogosphere and talk radio of people saying that they were unenthusiastic about McCain but now they want to put a sign up and go volunteer. These are just the people that McCain desperately needed to man the get out the vote efforts for the election. Without them, he had little chance of matching the GOTV efforts that helped Bush win in 2004. So he can check off the solidifying the base box on his to-do list. If he enjoys any sort of bounce in the next few days it will be because conservatives are coming back to McCain.

But there is another group out there that McCain needs to appeal to. It's not the Hillary voters, but the independent vote. And McCain and Obama have been tussling over that block in the middle of voters who don't really line up with either party. Think of them as the Reagan Democrats. And Palin gives McCain a real chance to pick up some independent white women voters that he was not succeeding with previously. Gallup broke down the gender gap among independent voters and showed that, according to all their polling in August, McCain was winning substantially, 51% to 35%, among non-Hispanic white independent men, but was virtually tied, 42% to 41%, among those non-Hispanic white women.

There is a significant gender gap in American presidential politics today, but it is confined for the most part to white voters who are politically independent. There is very little difference in presidential vote choice by gender among blacks and Hispanics, and among whites who are Republican or Democratic in their political identification.

Many assume that McCain's choice of a female running mate could increase his chances among female voters. If that is the case, it would appear that white independent women -- who are currently split almost down the middle in terms of their candidate support -- would be most susceptible to changing sides, given the strongly skewed (and gender-neutral) existing vote choice among blacks, Hispanics, and loyal partisans.

Elections are fought over those voters in the middle. Whichever candidate can win the independent voter in the middle will have the best chance of winning the election. And if Sarah Palin can help McCain win over some of those independent women, she will accomplish just what McCain needed.

If she can connect with those Reagan Democrats in states like Michigan and Ohio that she understands their problems and knows what those working mothers are concerned about then she will help John McCain to answer Obama's charge that McCain just doesn't get it. When she starts telling stories about being married to a union worker who goes out to work on Alaska's North Slope, she has the opportunity to make connections that none of the three other main candidates can equal. She'll be able to match Joe Biden story for story about growing up as the daughter of an elementary school teacher, working for the PTA and then deciding to enter politics so that she could fight for ordinary people.

And any attacks that the Democrats launch against her experiences will risk alienating just those sorts of voters that Obama needs to win.

Heather MacDonald chides McCain for succumbing to identity politics by picking a woman as a token candidate supposedly to appeal to women. Scott Orr isn't so sure that she was picked just because she is a woman and thinks that her image as a reformer fighting against corruption is what appealed to McCain.

I think Mac Donald is invoking utopian standards that give short shrift to Palin's bona fide politcal appeal. The political considerations that support Palin's selection are legitimate. This is an elective office we're talking about, after all. Indeed, Mac Donald's article is pushing me in the opposite direction. All things considered, including her political views, her record in office, her personal attributes, her complementarity with John McCain and her authentic appeal, Sarah Palin may be the best person for the job.

Lisa Schiffren answers the critics who see Palin as just a token.

Is it irresponsible to put a half-term governor in the vice presidential slot? It depends on her record. But surely for a Washington novice, the vice presidency is more appropriate than the presidency. A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. Palin is a woman of action, moreover, who has used her political capital at every stage to fight corruption and bad policy. It’s hard to find anyone in politics who does that; pols “save” their capital instead, as Obama has done by voting “present” on numerous occasions, lest spending it cost them something somewhere down the road. Her personal profile—raising five children, hunting, fishing, and being a real NRA member—make an appealing contrast with the overly cerebral, political calculations of those who merely hold positions and whose lives have been led in the service of their résumés.

Personally, I'm not as interested in having a candidate who is like me or has lived a life similar to mine, but I bet that there are a whole lot of people in some of those key swing states who remember Obama's putdown of people in small towns turning bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. Her mere biography is a rebuke to that sort of misunderstanding of what people in small towns think like. And if she can help McCain increase his support among independent women then this may turn out to be the first time when a vice presidential pick actually had a determining effect on the election since John Kennedy picked up Texas by choosing Lyndon B. Johnson.

Labels: Sarah Palin

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:47 PM 0 comments

Comments: Post a Comment

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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Palin and the women's vote

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HOME Betsy neither necessarily uses, nor endorses, the products advertised on this site. The truth about Avesil Cheap Hosting Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney Wikio Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights Online Bachelors Degree Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you. Site Feed		Sunday, August 31, 2008 Palin and the women's vote Democrats have been reacting to the idea that the pick of Sarah Palin would help McCain with disaffected Hillary voters. Lanny Davis, who knows something about Hillary voters, argues that women who supported Hillary care about an issue like abortion and would never vote for a pro-life ticket of McCain and Palin. The New York Times wonders if Hillary supporters can still cross off her name and write in Sarah. Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights. Not. So. Fast. I agree that most Hillary Clinton supporters will not go over to McCain. They might have toyed with John McCain but they will end up voting for the Democrat. I suspect that their decision to support Obama accounts for much of the bump that Obama has enjoyed in the polls since the Democratic convention ended. However, I don't think that disaffected Democratic voters are the prime target that McCain was aiming at with his choice of Sarah Palin. I think he was thinking of two different constituencies. One was the conservative base. They were mostly less than lukewarm in their support of John McCain. And boy are they fired up now. This was probably the only thing that McCain could have done to have gotten the Rush Limbaugh listeners fully on board. And they are showing their enthusiasm by having donated 7 million dollars by the day after the choice to the McCain/Palin campaign. There is anecdotal evidence all over the blogosphere and talk radio of people saying that they were unenthusiastic about McCain but now they want to put a sign up and go volunteer. These are just the people that McCain desperately needed to man the get out the vote efforts for the election. Without them, he had little chance of matching the GOTV efforts that helped Bush win in 2004. So he can check off the solidifying the base box on his to-do list. If he enjoys any sort of bounce in the next few days it will be because conservatives are coming back to McCain. But there is another group out there that McCain needs to appeal to. It's not the Hillary voters, but the independent vote. And McCain and Obama have been tussling over that block in the middle of voters who don't really line up with either party. Think of them as the Reagan Democrats. And Palin gives McCain a real chance to pick up some independent white women voters that he was not succeeding with previously. Gallup broke down the gender gap among independent voters and showed that, according to all their polling in August, McCain was winning substantially, 51% to 35%, among non-Hispanic white independent men, but was virtually tied, 42% to 41%, among those non-Hispanic white women. There is a significant gender gap in American presidential politics today, but it is confined for the most part to white voters who are politically independent. There is very little difference in presidential vote choice by gender among blacks and Hispanics, and among whites who are Republican or Democratic in their political identification. Many assume that McCain's choice of a female running mate could increase his chances among female voters. If that is the case, it would appear that white independent women -- who are currently split almost down the middle in terms of their candidate support -- would be most susceptible to changing sides, given the strongly skewed (and gender-neutral) existing vote choice among blacks, Hispanics, and loyal partisans. Elections are fought over those voters in the middle. Whichever candidate can win the independent voter in the middle will have the best chance of winning the election. And if Sarah Palin can help McCain win over some of those independent women, she will accomplish just what McCain needed. If she can connect with those Reagan Democrats in states like Michigan and Ohio that she understands their problems and knows what those working mothers are concerned about then she will help John McCain to answer Obama's charge that McCain just doesn't get it. When she starts telling stories about being married to a union worker who goes out to work on Alaska's North Slope, she has the opportunity to make connections that none of the three other main candidates can equal. She'll be able to match Joe Biden story for story about growing up as the daughter of an elementary school teacher, working for the PTA and then deciding to enter politics so that she could fight for ordinary people. And any attacks that the Democrats launch against her experiences will risk alienating just those sorts of voters that Obama needs to win. Heather MacDonald chides McCain for succumbing to identity politics by picking a woman as a token candidate supposedly to appeal to women. Scott Orr isn't so sure that she was picked just because she is a woman and thinks that her image as a reformer fighting against corruption is what appealed to McCain. I think Mac Donald is invoking utopian standards that give short shrift to Palin's bona fide politcal appeal. The political considerations that support Palin's selection are legitimate. This is an elective office we're talking about, after all. Indeed, Mac Donald's article is pushing me in the opposite direction. All things considered, including her political views, her record in office, her personal attributes, her complementarity with John McCain and her authentic appeal, Sarah Palin may be the best person for the job. Lisa Schiffren answers the critics who see Palin as just a token. Is it irresponsible to put a half-term governor in the vice presidential slot? It depends on her record. But surely for a Washington novice, the vice presidency is more appropriate than the presidency. A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. Palin is a woman of action, moreover, who has used her political capital at every stage to fight corruption and bad policy. It’s hard to find anyone in politics who does that; pols “save” their capital instead, as Obama has done by voting “present” on numerous occasions, lest spending it cost them something somewhere down the road. Her personal profile—raising five children, hunting, fishing, and being a real NRA member—make an appealing contrast with the overly cerebral, political calculations of those who merely hold positions and whose lives have been led in the service of their résumés. Personally, I'm not as interested in having a candidate who is like me or has lived a life similar to mine, but I bet that there are a whole lot of people in some of those key swing states who remember Obama's putdown of people in small towns turning bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. Her mere biography is a rebuke to that sort of misunderstanding of what people in small towns think like. And if she can help McCain increase his support among independent women then this may turn out to be the first time when a vice presidential pick actually had a determining effect on the election since John Kennedy picked up Texas by choosing Lyndon B. Johnson. Labels: Sarah Palin posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:47 PM 0 comments Comments: Democrats have been reacting to the idea that the pick of Sarah Palin would help McCain with disaffected Hillary voters. Lanny Davis, who knows something about Hillary voters, argues that women who supported Hillary care about an issue like abortion and would never vote for a pro-life ticket of McCain and Palin. The New York Times wonders if Hillary supporters can still cross off her name and write in Sarah. Democrats, who make up the party that has long claimed the bigger pool of up-and-coming women, were quick to dismiss Ms. Palin as not experienced enough to be a heartbeat from the presidency. Mrs. Clinton’s supporters will never back her, they insisted, because she is against abortion rights. Not. So. Fast. I agree that most Hillary Clinton supporters will not go over to McCain. They might have toyed with John McCain but they will end up voting for the Democrat. I suspect that their decision to support Obama accounts for much of the bump that Obama has enjoyed in the polls since the Democratic convention ended. However, I don't think that disaffected Democratic voters are the prime target that McCain was aiming at with his choice of Sarah Palin. I think he was thinking of two different constituencies. One was the conservative base. They were mostly less than lukewarm in their support of John McCain. And boy are they fired up now. This was probably the only thing that McCain could have done to have gotten the Rush Limbaugh listeners fully on board. And they are showing their enthusiasm by having donated 7 million dollars by the day after the choice to the McCain/Palin campaign. There is anecdotal evidence all over the blogosphere and talk radio of people saying that they were unenthusiastic about McCain but now they want to put a sign up and go volunteer. These are just the people that McCain desperately needed to man the get out the vote efforts for the election. Without them, he had little chance of matching the GOTV efforts that helped Bush win in 2004. So he can check off the solidifying the base box on his to-do list. If he enjoys any sort of bounce in the next few days it will be because conservatives are coming back to McCain. But there is another group out there that McCain needs to appeal to. It's not the Hillary voters, but the independent vote. And McCain and Obama have been tussling over that block in the middle of voters who don't really line up with either party. Think of them as the Reagan Democrats. And Palin gives McCain a real chance to pick up some independent white women voters that he was not succeeding with previously. Gallup broke down the gender gap among independent voters and showed that, according to all their polling in August, McCain was winning substantially, 51% to 35%, among non-Hispanic white independent men, but was virtually tied, 42% to 41%, among those non-Hispanic white women. There is a significant gender gap in American presidential politics today, but it is confined for the most part to white voters who are politically independent. There is very little difference in presidential vote choice by gender among blacks and Hispanics, and among whites who are Republican or Democratic in their political identification. Many assume that McCain's choice of a female running mate could increase his chances among female voters. If that is the case, it would appear that white independent women -- who are currently split almost down the middle in terms of their candidate support -- would be most susceptible to changing sides, given the strongly skewed (and gender-neutral) existing vote choice among blacks, Hispanics, and loyal partisans. Elections are fought over those voters in the middle. Whichever candidate can win the independent voter in the middle will have the best chance of winning the election. And if Sarah Palin can help McCain win over some of those independent women, she will accomplish just what McCain needed. If she can connect with those Reagan Democrats in states like Michigan and Ohio that she understands their problems and knows what those working mothers are concerned about then she will help John McCain to answer Obama's charge that McCain just doesn't get it. When she starts telling stories about being married to a union worker who goes out to work on Alaska's North Slope, she has the opportunity to make connections that none of the three other main candidates can equal. She'll be able to match Joe Biden story for story about growing up as the daughter of an elementary school teacher, working for the PTA and then deciding to enter politics so that she could fight for ordinary people. And any attacks that the Democrats launch against her experiences will risk alienating just those sorts of voters that Obama needs to win. Heather MacDonald chides McCain for succumbing to identity politics by picking a woman as a token candidate supposedly to appeal to women. Scott Orr isn't so sure that she was picked just because she is a woman and thinks that her image as a reformer fighting against corruption is what appealed to McCain. I think Mac Donald is invoking utopian standards that give short shrift to Palin's bona fide politcal appeal. The political considerations that support Palin's selection are legitimate. This is an elective office we're talking about, after all. Indeed, Mac Donald's article is pushing me in the opposite direction. All things considered, including her political views, her record in office, her personal attributes, her complementarity with John McCain and her authentic appeal, Sarah Palin may be the best person for the job. Lisa Schiffren answers the critics who see Palin as just a token. Is it irresponsible to put a half-term governor in the vice presidential slot? It depends on her record. But surely for a Washington novice, the vice presidency is more appropriate than the presidency. A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. Palin is a woman of action, moreover, who has used her political capital at every stage to fight corruption and bad policy. It’s hard to find anyone in politics who does that; pols “save” their capital instead, as Obama has done by voting “present” on numerous occasions, lest spending it cost them something somewhere down the road. Her personal profile—raising five children, hunting, fishing, and being a real NRA member—make an appealing contrast with the overly cerebral, political calculations of those who merely hold positions and whose lives have been led in the service of their résumés. Personally, I'm not as interested in having a candidate who is like me or has lived a life similar to mine, but I bet that there are a whole lot of people in some of those key swing states who remember Obama's putdown of people in small towns turning bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. Her mere biography is a rebuke to that sort of misunderstanding of what people in small towns think like. And if she can help McCain increase his support among independent women then this may turn out to be the first time when a vice presidential pick actually had a determining effect on the election since John Kennedy picked up Texas by choosing Lyndon B. Johnson. Labels: Sarah Palin posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:47 PM 0 comments Comments: Post a Comment