Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

A lot has been made in recent weeks of “The Palin Effect”, re-energizing the base, moving McCain ahead in the polls, etc.

While a lot has been made of this, especially the stuff about appealing to conservatives, I would note that McCain already had about 90% support among Republicans…more than Obama’s support among Democrats. So while re-energizing the base is helpful, especially for some fund-raising and getting volunteers out to help the campaign, the more important impact is among suburban women who might consider themselves moderates.

Certainly Palin appeals to soccer moms because she’s an Alaskan version of one. And the liberal media’s attempts to drag Palin through the mud will backfire on them unless they find a really serious problem.

But what is talked about less than the pro-McCain/Palin reaction of her selection, and what I think is just as important, is the implication for the Obama campaign: It was remarkably easy, at least initially, to get a lot of white women to move away from supporting him.

My thesis is that they didn’t truly support him to begin with. The mantra of “change” isn’t actually a great seller with suburban moms who don’t believe their lives are as bad as Obama says they are. They don’t see the world going to hell in a handbasket, even though they don’t love our current government, the war, and a weakening economy. They’re somewhat dissatisfied, but not enough to bet their kids’ futures on a guy with nothing more than platitudes to offer, and unspecified “change” as a platform.

Obama polls extremely poorly on questions of leadership and readiness. These are issues which point directly to national security or, in more plain language, the safety of our children…which is what soccer moms care about most. They weren’t excited about an old white guy as our next president, and Obama’s charisma moved them to his side initially. But it isn’t where they want to be.

The Palin Effect is, in my view, more a symptom of Obama being a weak candidate (certainly much weaker than Hillary Clinton) than of the country desperately wanting Sarah Palin. But Palin was the catalyst that let a large number of politically barely-active voters, especially suburban women, realize Obama’s weakness, especially when Obama’s stature is consistently degraded by having his qualifications compared to hers rather than to McCain’s. And for that I thank her. She’s far from my perfect candidate, but if McCain wins the election, his choice of running mate will be the reason. And in that sense, (since VP choices are usually irrelevant) she’ll make history twice.