Eight weeks remain until Election Day and the final result is
still anyone’s guess, but in just 10 days, Sarah Palin has
performed a political miracle.
The Alaska governor’s selection as John McCain’s running mate
deprived Barack Obama of his most valuable asset — the media
limelight — and even though coverage of her has been harshly
negative, Palin produced the spark that finally ignited excitement
among the disaffected conservative base of the Republican
Party.
The most obvious evidence of the Palin effect is the polls,
which have seen a huge swing toward the GOP since her convention
speech Wednesday.
Saturday, Zogby reported McCain-Palin with a 50-46 percent lead
over Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden. Sunday morning Rasmussen found the race a dead heat, and Gallup showed McCain pulling ahead 48-45 percent
among registered voters — “McCain’s largest advantage over Obama
since early May,” Gallup noted. Late Sunday evening, a fresh round
of polling from Gallup showed McCain had widened the margin to 4
points among registered voters — and had a whopping 10-point lead
(54-44 percent) among likely voters.
As important as the latest numbers were the trends the tracking
polls revealed. Obama actually gained in the immediate wake of the
Palin announcement, booming ahead by 8 points (Gallup) and 6 points
(Rasmussen) as the media slammed the new Republican running mate.
However, once America saw Palin speak for herself — in a broadcast
whose ratings nearly equaled Obama’s own
“Barackopolis” acceptance speech in Denver — voters apparently
surged toward the GOP.
Rasmussen reported that Palin was not only viewed more
favorably than her Democratic counterpart Biden, but was more
popular than either McCain or Obama.
THE STRONGEST GAIN appears to have been among the pro-life
Christians who are a key constituency for Republicans, with Zogby
noting that the McCain-Palin ticket had opened a double-digit
advantage among Catholic voters.
Anecdotal evidence supports the poll statistics.
“It’s a home run — everybody’s excited,” one longtime social
conservative activist said Sunday. “I talked to people at church
today who said they’d been throwing away mail from the Republican
Party…and now they say they’re going to send money and get
involved.”
Granted, some conservatives were critical of McCain’s choice.
Charles Krauthammer said the Palin pick was
“deeply problematic,” while GOP strategist Mike Murphy was caught on an MSNBC open microphone calling Palin a
“cynical” selection and predicting the pick was “not going to
work.”
McCain’s choice of Palin has been frequently described as a “gamble.” If so, it appears to be
paying off. By choosing a relatively unknown and relatively
inexperienced running mate, McCain set off an unpredictable series
of ricochet effects.
In the immediate aftermath of the Palin announcement, Democrats
seized on the argument that the Republican running mate was too
inexperienced for the job. That attack came back like a boomerang,
as Republicans responded that their No. 2 was at least as qualified
as the Democrats’ No. 1.
As a governor, she has little foreign policy background, but she
visited Alaska National Guard troops in Kuwait
last year and also visited wounded U.S. troops in Landstuhl — a
visit Obama famously failed to make in July. And her soldier son is
due to deploy to Iraq this week.
Her status as an unknown generated intense interest in Palin,
and conservative blogs saw a surge in traffic as voters turned to
the Internet for information.
PERHAPS THE PALIN PICK was most effective in highlighting the
Democratic schism produced by the long, bruising nomination battle
between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Team Obama said Hillary would take to the campaign trail to
help counteract Palin’s potential appeal to women voters, but the
Clinton camp didn’t seem enthusiastic.
Hillary’s first response to the Palin announcement was to issue
a terse two-sentence statement, and
last week, Clinton adviser Ann Lewis said: “She’s not running against Sarah Palin,
let’s be clear. She is not on the ticket.” Indeed she is not, and
Obama, who narrowly beat her for the presidential nomination and
then passed her over in favor of Biden as his running mate, can
hardly depend on Hillary to bail him out of this fix.
And what a fix it is! Every attack on Palin seems to have
backfired so far. Internet rumor-mongers had a field day (by
Sunday, conservative blogger Charles
Martin had listed 69 different Palin rumors), and yet her
popularity increased. With Palin on the ticket, McCain attracted
overflow crowds in excess of 10,000 at each stop Friday
and Saturday in Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado. Just three weeks
earlier, by comparison, the Republican drew only 3,000 to a
Pennsylvania rally.
Two months ago, Republicans were fighting against an attitude of
“doom” among
conservatives. Now, Democrats are in panic mode. “The Democrats are
in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this
campaign,” says Willie Brown, the former Democratic mayor of San
Francisco.
HOW TO EXPLAIN this stunning reversal? Last week, liberals chuckled
over a video of Palin speaking to a youth group at Wasilla
Assembly of God, the church she attended as a child. Palin spoke of
the “God’s will” and asked the youth to pray “for an outpouring of
God’s spirit.”
“Just be amazed…where God is going to send you,” Palin
said.
Such old-fashioned faith provokes laughter from liberals.
Palin’s miraculous effect on this campaign, however, makes it seem
less likely liberals will still be laughing November 5.
