Palin Did In Fact Draw White Women To The McCain Ticket--Temporarily

I'd like to respectfully respond to my colleague Morgan, who wrote last week, "The buzz is that John McCain had captured the support of white women because of Sarah Palin. But here's the rub: White women haven't behaved any differently from the general population. They haven't been swinging as wildly as my colleague Bonnie and many others have suggested."

Sorry, "sistah," but the facts as relayed by Politico.com are in stark contrast to the claim that white women were never wooed to the McCain ticket by Sarah Palin's presence.

They were indeed:

Shortly after John McCain's announcement that Palin would be his running mate, several polls showed a strong swing of white women toward McCain. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted immediately after the Republican convention showed a 20 percent swing among white women toward McCain. White women went from supporting Barack Obama 50 percent to 42 percent to supporting McCain 53 percent to 41 percent, a swing that helped McCain close a 6 percent gap in the poll in only a week.

But Obama has since regained his lead with white women in most polls.

And Obama now leads among all women voters "despite all the talk of disaffected Hillary Clinton voters."

The facts are, white women were taken by Sarah Palin at first by a considerable margin. But since all the negative publicity and facts surrounding Palin have come out (the abuse-of-power investigation in Alaska, her mean-spirited love of slaughtering wildlife, her teenage daughter's pregnancy, and her hard-right stand on most issues), women have fled back into the Obama camp. I rest my case.

By Bonnie Erbe