Parsing the Palin phenomenon

Parsing the Palin phenomenon
Joni Balter
Seattle Times staff columnist

Alaska. Gov. Sarah Palin appears on the cover of "Newsweek" this week, toting a shotgun, in an opus called "Palintology. " She stirs huge...

Alaska. Gov. Sarah Palin appears on the cover of "Newsweek" this week, toting a shotgun, in an opus called "Palintology." She stirs huge crowds of conservatives everywhere she and Sen. John McCain go. She, not he, is the talk of the 2008 presidential campaign. And polls show voters are charged up for once about the Republican ticket.

No wonder Barack Obama's supporters are feeling a little verklempt, as in, out of sorts, clenched — OK, rattled.

Everybody expected a post-convention bounce for McCain, similar to one enjoyed by Obama after his knockout convention speech. But a legitimate worry is about female voters, a group Obama needs to win, and which has swung pretty dramatically in recent days from strongly pro-Obama to a narrower lead — if you believe the polls, and in some ways I don't. (The swing is even bigger among white women voters.)

Much of the volatility among female voters stems from the fact that women feel tugged in a lot of different directions. Palin offers the chance to smash the glass ceiling, if smashing the glass ceiling is the most important thing.

Palin is the kind of brash, good-looking, in-your-face candidate who connects with working-class women. She's more like everymoms than Obama. Yes, sure, he was raised by a single mother and grandparents, but in the end, he went to Harvard.

Somehow, an election supposedly about issues has devolved into a campaign about personal narrative, and that is how McCain wants it.

I suspect the Palin effect will fade in the days and weeks ahead. She is one deer-in-the-headlights answer away from scaring the very same people currently embracing her...

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Parsing the Palin phenomenon