CE Week #5: “Skepticism of Palin Growing, Poll Finds”
By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 2, 2008; A01
With the vice presidential candidates set to square off today in their only scheduled debate, public assessments of Sarah Palin’s readiness have plummeted, and she may now be a drag on the Republican ticket among key voter groups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Tonight’s heavily anticipated debate comes just five weeks after the popular Alaska governor entered the national spotlight as Sen. John McCain’s surprise pick to be his running mate. Though she initially transformed the race with her energizing presence and a fiery convention speech, Palin is now a much less positive force: Six in 10 voters see her as lacking the experience to be an effective president, and a third are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her.
A month ago, voters rated Palin as highly as they did McCain or his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, but after weeks of intensive coverage and several perceived missteps, the shine has diminished.
Nearly a third of adults in a new poll from the Pew Research Center said they paid a lot of attention to Palin’s interviews with CBS News’s Katie Couric, a series that prompted grumbling among some conservative commentators about Palin’s competency to be the GOP’s vice presidential standard-bearer. The Pew poll showed views of Palin slipping over the past few days alone.
In the new Post-ABC poll, Palin matches the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., on empathy, one of McCain’s clear deficits against Obama, while fewer than half of voters think she understands “complex issues.”
But it is the experience question that may prove her highest hurdle, particularly when paired with widespread public concern about McCain’s age. About half of all voters said they were uncomfortable with the idea of McCain taking office at age 72, and 85 percent of those voters said Palin does not have the requisite experience to be president.
The 60 percent who now see Palin as insufficiently experienced to step into the presidency is steeply higher than in a Post-ABC poll after her nomination early last month. Democrats and Republicans alike are now more apt to doubt her qualifications, but the biggest shift has come among independents.
In early September, independents offered a divided verdict on Palin’s experience; now they take the negative view by about 2 to 1. Nearly two-thirds of both independent men and women in the new poll said Palin has insufficient experience to run the White House.
Obama was able for the first time to crack the 50 percent mark, albeit barely, on whether he has the experience to be president following Friday’s presidential debate, and the question is one of Palin’s central challenges as she prepares to face Biden in prime time before a national television audience.
More than two-thirds of voters in the Pew poll said they plan to watch the debate, far more than said they were going to turn on the vice presidential debate four years ago. The expectations are that Biden, a six-term senator, will win: Voters by a 19-point margin think he will prove to be the better debater.
In the new Post-ABC poll, majorities of conservatives and Republicans maintain that Palin has the necessary experience to step in as president, though those numbers are also down somewhat from early last month.
But a third of independent voters now indicate they are less likely to support McCain because of Palin, compared with 20 percent who said so in an ABC poll a month ago. Palin now repels more independents than she attracts to McCain. The share of independent women less apt to support McCain because of the Palin pick has more than doubled to 34 percent, while the percentage more inclined to support him is down eight points.
White Catholics, another important group of swing voters, also are now more likely to say that Palin dampens their support for McCain.
Still, nearly half of both white Catholics and independents said she does not affect their votes. Even more, about six in 10, said Obama’s pick of Biden did not change their chances of voting Democratic.
The history of vice presidential picks suggests they are rarely consequential, and in a July Post-ABC poll, the nominees’ choice for No. 2 was last on a list of 17 items voters said might sway their decisions.
The reaction to Palin, however, has been uncharacteristically strong.
Nearly three in 10 independent women have intensely unfavorable opinions of her, more than twice the proportion holding such views of Biden. And a majority of Democratic women now have “strongly unfavorable” views of Palin, up sharply from just after she accepted the nomination.
Among all voters, 29 percent have “strongly favorable” views, and an exactly offsetting number hold intensely negative ones. Attitudes toward Biden are more subdued.
Overall, 51 percent of voters view Palin favorably; for Biden, that number is a bit higher at 57 percent.
The vice presidential hopefuls run about evenly among all voters and among independents on the question of whether they “understand the problems of people like you.” That is an important factor for the GOP ticket, as McCain continues to trail Obama as the candidate more in tune with the financial problems Americans face.
White married women are particularly likely to see Palin as in touch, as three-quarters said she understands their concerns. At the same time, a majority of such women do not think Palin has enough experience to be a good president. (White married women support the GOP ticket by a 20-point margin.)
Palin runs far behind Biden on another important attribute: About three-quarters of those surveyed said he understands complex issues, compared with 46 percent who said so of her.
On the eve of the presidential election in 2000, 76 percent said Al Gore had a solid grasp of hard issues; 60 percent said so of George W. Bush.
Despite Palin’s slip in public assessments, the boost she has provided among some core segments of the GOP base has not faded. Enthusiasm for McCain’s candidacy among Republicans, conservatives and white evangelical Protestants climbed sharply after the party’s convention in St. Paul, Minn., where Palin made her debut, and it has held relatively steady since.
But even within these Republican strongholds, questions about Palin’s experience are fairly common. About four in 10 conservatives and white evangelical Protestants, three in 10 Republicans and a quarter of GOP women said she does not have the necessary experience.
The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 27 to 29 among a random sample of adults nationally, including interviews with 1,070 registered voters. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Error margins for subgroups are higher.
John McCain’s reason for choosing Sarah Palin as a vice presidential running mate was purely political; a crafty strategy enacted to beautify his monotone campaign. According to the polls, the American people are beginning to recognize this. “The 60 percent who now see Palin as insufficiently experienced to step into the presidency is steeply higher than in a Post-ABC poll after her nomination early last month. Democrats and Republicans alike are now more apt to doubt her qualifications.” These doubts are perfectly reasonable! In fact, her performance during tonight’s vice presidential debate advocated such doubts. Sarah Palin is extremely talented at avoiding “tough” questions, and presenting irrelevant answers. Who craves a vice president that carries all the irrelevant answers? Who craves a vice president that says “straight up” at least four times during a formal debate? Joe Biden was laughing at her! I was laughing at her.
At this point, not only has Sarah Palin proved herself as an inexperienced politician, she has also proved herself as an unintelligent politician. In other words, she is “straight up” stupid. However, I do find comfort amongst recent poll results: “Among all voters, 29 percent have “strongly favorable” views, and an exactly offsetting number hold intensely negative ones.”
I am going to comment on how I think the vice-president’s debate went and how I think that will effect Palin and McCain’s polls. I first of all think that the media, and/ or the democrat strategists, tried to raise Palin’s expectations this morning. I know Mr. Kautzmen talked about this in class and I would like to expand on it. I watch the morning shows every morning, that was repetitive.. Anyways, each morning the media has commented on the downturn of Palin’s popularity but not this morning, no, this morning they told about her qualities and the fact that they thought she might do well against Biden. This was all so that, if by any far fetching chance, she did do well; they had prepared the country to not be in shock. His was a cushion so that the Republicans would not get a bounce from this debate. The democrats further more tried to cushion themselves by telling the public that they were telling Biden to tone down. Therefore, if Biden won they could spin it to say he did so without even trying, if Palin won they could blame it on the fact that Biden was taking it easy. I won’t even begin to comment on the moderator, who lied to the Debate Committee and has an economic interest in Obama, if I started in on some of those issues, I would never stop. I think Palin did a good job tonight representing herself and putting in plugs for McCain. This was a tough debate for her because Biden brought up many things that Palin could not comment on. Biden has been in the Senate for a long time and has served with McCain for a long time. He brought up many votes and things that happened in the Senate that Palin could not speak to because she was not there. Palin definitely won the debate on her body language and charisma but I don’t think there was any clear winner on content. It was a pretty boring debate. I think McCain and Palin will rise in the polls from this debate and help combat their past not- so- hot week. By the way, how did Joe Biden answer the question about his changing his opinion speal if the questions were not released to ANYONE before the debate? Just a thought…
Sarah Palin is all wrong for the vice presidency. All those Republicans are out there saying that Obama doesn’t have enough experience, but here’s the woman that they’re supporting that has even less. She appears to be completely clueless about things that go on outside of Alaska. That doesn’t make for a good person to possibly run our country, because it’s possible for McCain to die. Everyone does eventually. She has little to no experience with foreign policy, and she doesn’t even seem to know the names of major, national newspapers. She seems so focused on her “hockey moms”. These women do not make up all of the women in this country, and to me it feels like she’s stereotyping women into this role. The Republicans are claiming that there is sexism going on in this race, because of Palin. There’s also racism, and most likely ageism as well. You can’t get rid of every –ism in the world. No matter how hard you try, it’ll be there. I think that the Republicans are exploiting the whole sexism thing. If someone calls Palin out for being unqualified, they immediately retort back saying that the comment was sexist, and they only said that because she’s a woman. It’s all a load of bull. Palin is obviously not an idiot. She’s just Ill-informed, and unaware of many things going on. If McCain and Palin get elected I will throw up. They’re not bad people, but what they want to do to this country is not what needs to be done.
It was not a surprise to see that “fewer than half of the voters think [Palin] understands complex issues”. With the interviews that she has done with Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, and Sean Hannity she has not really had a good impression on voters. Hopefully the Vice President debate with Biden will go over better than the interviews, and she comes more prepared. In the beginning McCain’s choice of Vice President was a great choice because it balanced his ticket because she attracted more votes from women. Now that people have seen more of her “a third [of the voters] are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her”. With McCain’s age there has been a lot of concern about Palin taking the office of President since. And though the issue of Palin’s experience should not be brought up considering how much experience Obama has had, it was put to the polls. Around 50 percent of the voters thought that Obama has the needed experience after the first debate, and about 40 percent of the voters think that Palin has the needed experience. Unless Palin turns it around in the vice president debate she just does not seem like a person ready for these kinds of responsibilities.
The only good thing about Palin is her accent. It makes her hilarious to make fun of on Saturday Night Live. Seriously, the only redeeming quality Palin has is her likeness to Tina Fey. She stole the woman’s glasses, for God’s sake. Sarah Palin is not ready to be president. John McCain could die in office, should he be elected. Then Sarah Palin would take over. That would be the apocalypse. I really think that she would do something heinous and destroy humanity as we know it. People might say it’s hypocritical to say she doesn’t have enough experience yet Obama does, but he has more than her. It’s not that hard to get more experience than her. Sarah Palin knows little to nothing outside of Alaska. That’s unacceptable in a president. Want to prove that Obama is more experienced? Watch him speak publicly or be interviewed for television. He doesn’t say something stupid or contradictory or mistake the Bush Doctrine for “his worldview.” Sarah Palin makes those mistakes. Married white women might like her, but that’s only because they obviously traded their brains for minivans. (Granted, not all married white women trade their brains for minivans; that would be stereotyping. Some get SUVs instead.) Normal people don’t love her anymore. Whatever charm she held vanished when she backed herself into corners with Katie Couric around. The thought of Sarah Palin being vice president scares me, too. What if she had to break a tie in the Senate? I really doubt if she can handle anything beyond the icy reaches of Alaska. Therefore, vote Obama so Sarah Palin can go back home.
I find this article pretty interesting. First off, I was very impressed with Sarah Palin’s speech at the republican nominating convention and I was under the impression that she was a good speaker. I guess the speech didn’t show the weaker points of her image, like her ability to answer questions and do interviews. I have not personally seen any of these interviews but after reading about them and hearing about them from other people, I am inclined to think that Palin might not have been such a strategic pick after all. I think the biggest surprise I found in this article was, “White married women are particularly likely to see Palin as in touch, as three-quarters said she understands their concerns. At the same time, a majority of such women do not think Palin has enough experience to be a good president.” This could be a problem for the GOP because Palin was picked as McCain’s running mate partly in order to get votes from women who would tend to support a fellow female. I also think it is a problem that independents have a negative view of Palin by about 2 to 1. This is a problem because McCain needs some of these votes to win the election. If skepticism of Palin continues to grow McCain could be looking at a pretty big problem with the ability to get enough votes to win the election.