"How dumb do they think women are?"

"How dumb do they think women are?" were the first words Sara said to me after the announcement that John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. As was reported from many sources, McCain's VP pick stirs excitement, bafflement among women,:

McCain's strategists do hope that Palin will help McCain attract disaffected Democratic and independent women who supported Hillary Clinton in this year's long and bitter Democratic primary contest.

There is a problem with the strategy, just as there is with the Republican sideshow featuring disaffected former Hillary Clinton Wisconsin delegate Debra Bartoshevich.

Bartoshevich, once a Clinton delegate from Wisconsin, is now the star of a Republican 'attack ad' appealing for Clinton supporters to abandon Obama.

'I have spoken to a lot of Democrats who are the same as I am. But they are not ready to come out,' she said. She added that she was going public to encourage them to jump ship too. 'I want others to feel that they can come out,' she said.

There are two problems with this strategy. The first is drawing a conclusion from anecdotes rather than hard data. Bartoshevich and her 'lot of democrats' are anecdotes, not fact. There is no evidence that there is significant movement to McCain by Hillary Clinton supporters.

Which leads to the second Republican problem.

It is a huge leap of faith to conclude that because a significant number of Democratic and liberal leaning independent women voters supported Hillary Clinton, that they are going to drop their core beliefs and vote for a Republican ticket simply becasue it features an NRA, anti-choice woman.

As Sara Soglin said, "How dumb do they think women are?"

Comments

[antpoppa]

My wife put it simply too, " He found a skirt to hide behind."

I can't add that.

[Katrina]

We can be just as stupid as men. Some of us did vote for Annette Zeigler (not me!).

[John]

If you would like to see Debra's embarrassing McCain ad, I've got it here.

http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/08/ousted-wisconsin-clinton-delegate-in.html

[Charlie UnSykes]

I don't think this was a move calculated to pick up disaffected Hilary voters. More likely the McCain campaign wanted to bring out the evangelical and anti-abortion voters.

I actually think selecting Palin was a smart move for McCain. Her politics are atrocious but she's a fresh face: friendly, attractive, and articulate. Selecting her re-establishes McCain's credentials as a maverick and invigorates his campaign. Choosing a safe running mate like Romney or Pawlenty wouldn't gotten McCain anywhere, but Palin suddenly makes him a more interesting candidate.