Palin's Not Helping

Despite all the hoopla over McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the inspiration it apparently provided right-wing Republicans who somehow could not motivate themselves to volunteer until a George W. Bush clone was also running, Palin-as I've said before-does little to alter the overall dynamics of the race:

...the Times/CBS News poll suggested that Ms. Palin’s selection has, to date, helped Mr. McCain only among Republican base voters; there was no evidence of significantly increased support for him among female voters in general. White women are evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama; before the conventions, Mr. McCain led Mr. Obama among white women by a margin of 44 percent to 37 percent.

By contrast, at this point in the 2004 campaign, President Bush was leading Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic challenger, by 56 percent to 37 percent among white women.

So she fired up the base, which helped a little, but the Republican base isn't going to win McCain this election, at least not when it has to contend with a Democratic base that has registered voters in record numbers (though of course, nothing can be taken for granted.)