Gallup: For Every Voter Palin Wins Over, Another Jumps To Obama
A new polling analysis from Gallup suggests that John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin may have helped him solidify his support among Republican women -- but it may have also alienated other voters and made the whole thing a wash for now.
Gallup's polling finds that McCain support among Republican women has increased from 85% to 90% in the last few days since Palin's selection. But on the other hand, his numbers have gone down among other groups: He's fallen by four points among independent men and three points with indy women, and is down by five points with Democratic men and two points with Dem women. So Palin hasn't really helped him so far.
"Instead, the data suggest that McCain has in essence fought a rear-guard action of sorts among white women of his own GOP base," the analysis finds, "building their support to a degree even as he was losing support among independents and Democrats of both genders."
Well, duh.
September 3, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you mean "Every" in the title.
September 3, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Gov Palin decision is blowing up in McCain's face. I just wonder how long will it be before Republicans start jumping ship.
September 3, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Murphy, Noonan, Cohen (wash po), and Krauthammer have all jumped. They will not be alone.
Her speech, to me, has less and less import. There can be no speechifying her way out of this.
September 3, 2008 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ben Stein ripped into her today as well saying she's not VP material.
September 3, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really? Do you have a link?
September 3, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The non-fringe Republicans are starting to jump ship.
September 3, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I mean really - a wash?
I guess if you just focus on polls all the time you don't really see the rest. The entire Repug Establishment is at war.
Apparently, we have Rove/Bush to thank for this - I read Bush and McCain are royally pissed at each other and Palin may have been a last ditch "in your face" to Rove - who the hell knows.
But there aren't enough batshit insane REpug women to put this team in the White House.
Not even close.
September 3, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin is bush in drag!
September 3, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
O yeah - said so myself about 8000 times - only with less experience.
September 3, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry to have muscled in on your territory, my dear!
September 3, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
O no no no no - I'm just agreeing 8000 times at least.
:)
September 3, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I beg to differ. Palin is so far to the right, she makes 43 look like Arlen Specter.
September 3, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
so how long until the staffers start jumping ship again? Pissing off his subs seems to be a specialty of his too.
September 3, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
neither of the repubs on this ticket seems able to get along with their own party members.
I can't wait till they have a fight themselves!
September 3, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
gotta feeling 'gun-totin' Palin' would win hands down.
September 3, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait wait - Krauthammer?
Krauthammer?
wow. I didn't think he had it in him.
September 3, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
He called it "near suicidal."
September 3, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even the insufferable George Will weighed in against Palin in this morning's Washington Post. She's a dead woman walking.
September 3, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
That surprises me. He was all warm and fuzzy over her on Sunday.
September 3, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. And the real test comes out on the campaign trail when she starts giving interviews from reporters not working for US Weekly. A big game of Gotcha is coming. It's hard to believe she won't fail.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
September 3, 2008 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to be redundant, but what a ridiculous strategy. With a "centrist" like Lieberman or Ridge, I really believe McCain would have won the election. He's a fool and a coward. If he couldn't stand up to the lunatic fringe in his party then he deserves his fate.
Ok that is all redundant.
September 3, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I better amplify: it's unfortunate, but most Americans are neither smart nor liberal enough to do (on their own or out of the goodness of their hearts or out of any sense of conviction) what is good for them, which is to vote, in this case, for a black man for president. They have to be brought along I think. I have been struck by the vaguely ethnographic pieces in the Guardian lately, in which one of the reporters has been visiting swing states and talking to 'average' dem voters who often clam up when asked directly if they can bring themselves to vote for a black man.
The selection of Palin might help with the slow miracle; it is, or is turning out to be, a bit of luck. It has managed to stage the election thus far as a battle between the fundamentalist fringe and the rest of the U.S. If the middle goes along with the big White Party, then it is not really the middle and Obama was never going to win.
September 3, 2008 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
O give it a rest.
The concern trolling goes nowhere.
This is all over.
September 3, 2008 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not yet, this is getting too fun to stop now!
September 3, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well I don't mean this slow motion (relatively) train wreck.
It's got miles to go!
:)
September 3, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just said most Americans are stupid (Idiocracy). If you think my posts were instances of 'concern trolling,' then I think my point stands.
September 3, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
You said it all. And I would just add that he's a wimp. How's he going to stand up to Putin and Ahmedinejad when he can't even stand up to James Dobson, Pat Robertson, George W. Bush, Karl Rove and all the other looney tunes out there?
September 3, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey "Moose", you better not get within 10 feet of Palin or its "Hold the pickles hold the lettuce...." for you. :-)
September 4, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain is toast if he can't win over independents, and strip some democrats away. The fact that Palin has alienated voters in these two key demographics is huge.
September 3, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, a convention when he needs to rally the base is a convention wasted.
September 3, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
So John McCain is basically winning over the voters he was already going to get and alienating the voters he needs to win- brilliant move there John!
September 3, 2008 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mavericky!
September 3, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Squared!
September 3, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, sounds more like for every voter he gains, he loses just under two and half, a net loss of one and half votes.
Clearly, Democrats should be worried, I mean, any day now Midwesterners like me and my parents back home on the farm will be mesmerized by her "reform" into voting for McRegis-Kelly.
September 3, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah... can't you feel that rapture mentality coming?
September 3, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hate how the press is selling her speech tonight as a make or break - it's a canned speech read off of a teleprompter. She's a former sportscaster, it's going to be a good speech.
Will the speech make troopergate go away? will it make the earmarks go away? will it make the bridge to nowhere lie go away? will it make Todd's AIP membership go away? will it make the other abuse of power issues in Alaska go away? Will it make her crazy pastor go away? Will it make her being director of Ted Stevens 527 go away? will it make her inexperience go away? will it make the fact that she has no international experience go away? Will it make the fact that she isn't ready from day one go away?
It's a speech written by professional speech writers read from a teleprompter. She'll do well as long as she doesn't like like she did when she was introduced. I bet it's going to be a autobiographical speech trying to paint her as the every mom. I also expect she'll come out and defend her daughter, and maybe attack the media to try and rally support and sympathy.
September 3, 2008 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
FOX had excerpts. She's going to equate her time as Mayor of Wasilla to being a community organizer, but with "real responsibilities."
September 3, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
What? Chasing the moose out of the trashcans?
September 3, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You think it's easy to fuck up a land deal for a new stadium and leave a small town $20 million in debt????!?!?
September 3, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. I shouldn't be belittling all of that executive experience.
September 3, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
She made decisions! Like who to fire for political reasons and what books to ban. Real executive decisions.
September 3, 2008 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
With those credentials, she IS a perfect Republican. I'm surprised she's not already on Cheney's staff.
September 3, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Decisions! Like .... flying while in labor... risking an emergency landing...
Decisions. Let's hear it!
September 3, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's no forget how stupid the press is, and how easily they are swayed by the manipulation of the McCain propaganda machine. They didn't become his base for no reason. poodles.
But never mind, McCain is toast.
September 3, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aye, the hole only gets darker and deeper from here.
I am waiting for a woman I know personally -- any woman, and I've asked over two dozen now -- who do not come back to this conclusion:
She needs to be home with those kids.
It's the default diplomatic decision, her trap door, and the only way out.
September 3, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
You and me both, baby.
Same here!
September 3, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alaska needs her. Babies need her.
She'll be glad that while mayor she got funds for a mental health center... she's going to need it for her growing family...
September 3, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
And most of the speech was apparently written before she was even picked:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/09/putting_words_in_palins_mouth.html
September 3, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
haha!
The speech was too masculine?! What, did it reference the speaker's testicles a lot?
September 3, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe they thought McCain was going to go super-Mavericky and pick Hillary and her three testicles as his running mate.
September 3, 2008 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. If she goes well tonight (and I don't see it otherwise, she's a former broadcaster, so that will not be a major problem) then the main reaction will be: not bad, let's find out more about her. That's where the problem will start. People are one click away of the real Sarah Palin and apparently, some MSM are starting to do their job. In the end, Troopergate will not go away, the other stuff will not go away, the vetting question will not go away and the main question will remain: Is this woman ready to assume office, given that his running mate is 72 years old and a four times cancer survivor?
September 3, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrea Mitchell even reported that it is a "canned" speech planned for whoever was going to VP and they just made a few modifications for specifically for Palin.
So we will definitely get to see how well she reads a teleprompter, but not much else.
September 3, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to say that I love that we have leaders in Senator Obama and Senator Biden who can step back and let McCain's campaign implode, not get caught up in any of the drama and stay focused on what's important.
Thas is of course only possible when the media and 'we' do our part to get information out so that we can see what we are really dealing with.
This works!
September 3, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a little ironic
Republicans saying Democrats we are humiliating a seventeen year old girl for political purposes - rather then looking at the larger point which is abstinence vs. sex education and birth control.
Yet those very same Republicans are more then willing to send seventeen year olds to Iraq to die based on lies for the political purpose of making McCain's surge appear successful when all we have done is enable Iraqi Shiites to eventually align themselves with Iranian Shiites
against Americas best interests.
September 3, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
What about the photo today of McCain getting off the plane and embracing Bristol and her boy friend? Talk about hypocrites! I feel sorry for both of those kids being put in the spot light but I also don't think they should become the poster children of a major Republican ad campaign to promote teen sex, teen pregnancy, and teen marriage. He was exploiting those kids. Whether they wanted to be at the airport or not, adults should have kept them away from the cameras.
September 3, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely. If Palin is so concerned about her daughters privacy, why isn't the girl back in Alaska or back at the hotel? Why did they drag her boyfriend all the way to Minnesota? I'm sorry, but they can't have it both ways.
September 3, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen, bluebell. That kid and her unborn kid and the shotgun husband to be are being exploited as props for a sinking campaign.
September 3, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm.
So 5% of Republican women is an equal number to 4% I men, 3% I women, 5% D men and 2% D women?
They have really been working those registrations. We may be in trouble here.
September 3, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's this "we" shit, roo? LOL - you aren't a Democrat.
September 3, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You want to take a second swing at that one? Here, use this clue bat.
September 3, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an idiot! I'm watching MSNBC and some "demonstrators" behind them are protesting the media. And one higly educated protester has a sign that reads "MSNNBC = DNCTV". Wow.
September 3, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
They also have the 9/11 Was An Inside Job crowd. They were in Denver, too, but this week there are more, and their signs are all printed and nice.
September 3, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, gotta love those hapless conspiracy theory nuts and self-described "anarchists" that crash the conventions.
September 3, 2008 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
they're at war with the press! they've lost sight of their foe. How's than gonna get them voters?
September 3, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is uncertain if McCain has a rear to guard.
The numbers as stated seem odd, and it is early; but it is difficult to see McCain & Co. making much improvement going forward. Whatever they mean does not suggest much help for McCain; given their convention a negative bounce may occur. Their appeal is simply to narrow, and all the spin in the world will not help. Also, Obama & Co. may offer McCain a post convention surprise or two.
Palin will continue to be a problem, and all the obsessively floated narratives will fall at an increasing pace. The infamous David Brooks is using Rove's famous "a gift that keep giving" in talking about Palin.
September 3, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way - where are Sarah Palin's parents - anyone know? I haven't heard one thing about them. Her mother in law is the only other family member I can recall.
September 3, 2008 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
They seceded to Ted Kasinski's shack.
September 3, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!!
September 3, 2008 7:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gov. Palin is disgrace to the vice presidency. I hope the media continues to aim fire at her.
September 3, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin was a cynical pick, a clear attempt to peal off Hillary women, but what we've seen in the gallop data is the Hillary people are running away from McPalin and toward Obama.
September 3, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The few I know who were for Hill are not gonna vote for Palin. No way!!!
September 3, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course not - she's an insult to Hillary Clinton and to women.
And I told you upthread- if you don't see it - I didn't mean to tell you to step off, I was agreeing 8000 times with you -
:)
September 3, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
A conservative blogger made a good point today about the base enthusiasm for Palin. It is not so much about Palin herself, it is about the fact that they defeated McCain.
The radical wing of the Republican party effectively forced McCain to cry "uncle". The party is truly their party now.
Barry Goldwater must be spinning in his grave.
September 3, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kerry said it on Sunday morning, he's a prisoner to the rightwing fundamentalists, not a maverick.
September 3, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It means the GOP will not rise again for some time. Thralldom to this crew put the GOP on the wrong side of seminal Ameican milestones for 40 years in Congress. Back to the wilderness will they go.
September 3, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of all the more seasoned women in the republican party like Baily-Hutchinson, Megan Whitman, Rothstien, Rell, Lingle etc---Why the hell Palin?
September 3, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody knowwwwwwwwwssssss
Actually, because Dobson told 'em to, I'm thinking.
September 3, 2008 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
And what does it say about your base when you fire it up and lose the election to jr. senator who is african american?
September 3, 2008 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that is what is making Noonan and Murphy so pissed off.
September 3, 2008 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was one of her quotes, that she had spoken to Kay Baily Hutchenson and Kay was not a happy camper.
Chuck Todd just reported that it's not the convention delegates that are raising serious questions about Sarah Palin. It's his conservative contacts in the press.
Tom Brokow was quick to dismiss any pesky news to claim that not only would we need to wait for her to speak (I won't be tuning in; not a singe millesecond to waste on that), but we would need to wait to hear her speak throughout the campaign before we could make up our minds.
Tom, the Internet owns this story's genesis. Get over it. And it's moving faster than you have length left in the teeth. It ate King Bubbuh, and it will eat you, too.
September 3, 2008 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Inquiring minds want to know: What election was won by a VP's acceptance speech?
September 3, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word.
Goung to be a nasty hangover from the Blathering Binge of St. Paul....
September 3, 2008 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The brilliance this pick's failure is the richness of reasons to reject her, the majority of which are serious policy issues, many of which arise from vacuous ignorance on how the world actually works.
So, by the time we get to her "family situation," it's just another nail in the coffin.
September 3, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously, though, to overly simplify and use a 1/3 D/I/R, 1/2 F/M breakdown:
Gain: 0.083%
Loss: 0.23%
What am I missing in my numbers? 'Cause this is Obama taking people four to one as portion of the total electorate.
September 3, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be "three to one," obviously.
September 3, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, obviously. And you're not missing anything.
Advantage: Obama.
Or as Todd put it: It's over.
September 3, 2008 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Todd? Try Peggy Noonan.
September 3, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I stand corrected.
September 3, 2008 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh heeeeeeere we go....
Tom Brokow must have had an off-camera chat w/Chuck Todd.
Now the meme is, "Unless there is a whole lot more than Troopergate, there's no problem with Sarah Palin."
September 3, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know, how about the fact she filed an ethics charge against heself. I mean, has this ever happened in American politics? So Tom was saying in the subtext: there is a problem with Sarah.
September 3, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
All I hear from the Repub convention is how everyone just loves Palin. Everyone in that convention hall and right wing nuts anyway. McCain would have gotten those votes either way. It just shores up a base that would have voted for McCain. Now whom else does Palin appeal to? Not many. Well maybe that mom in rural America who thinks that religion, pro life and guns are more important then just losing a job, unable to pay the bills and a home in foreclosure
September 3, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
CNN reporter talking to the youngest Repub delegate: "she's a hard working housewife." Yup he learned well at the feet of the masters. Women, whether governor or not, are housewives.
September 3, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to say she's been great for my marriage; my husband went over to the dark side sometime during Clinton's second term. But he's always hated the religious right-wingers and the Palin pick has convinced him to vote for Obama. He's just one example of the kinds of folks you guys are talking about who are driving these polls.
September 3, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Despite that fact that they are a bunch of venal bastards, they are at least showing their true colors as a bunch of flag waving, ass kissing, power hungry, fascist, venal bastards.
September 3, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has anyone thought about the fact that every time the conservatives try to do something to stop Obama it backfires? Instead of promoting themselves and their values they are always talking about Obama and it keeps failing. Praying for rain, the counting days until he goes to Iraq - only to see him acting very presidential, the celeb meme only reinforcing that we love him, and now Palin
September 4, 2008 4:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know the people of my country are NOT MORONS! Of course the American voter will see McCain and Palin for what they are: scary, right-wing reactionaries who are big on opinion, but short on knowledge. We have in McCain, et. al. a Fred Flintstone and Betty Rubble ticket--they will send us back to the stone age (a hyperbole, my friends....) Sarah Palin isn't a candidate for the future. She is a candidate for the 1950s. She is NO Jackie Kennedy. She is NO Elinor Roosevelt. She is NO Ann Richards. She isn't even Dolly Madison. I am aghast the Republicans are trying to pawn off a used car on us AGAIN. A used car that not only has had its odometer set back, but doesn't even have an engine!
Come on Americans! You can fool us once, you can fool us twice, WE WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN...
September 4, 2008 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink