How is Palin Doing?
The pollsters are giving Sarah Palin a lot of attention. In some ways, she comes out on top, but not in others. Rasmussen Reports has three polls out on America’s prospective of her. See which ones you agree with.
First of all, Rasmussen Reports come up with an interesting proposition. What if it was a head to head match up for President between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin? Clinton would win by a margin of 52 to 41%. Of course, it gets interesting when you look closely at the demographics. Palin would get more votes from the men, 49 to 45% and Clinton from the women. Of course, 85% of the Republicans say Palin and 87% of the Democrats say Clinton, but when it comes to independents, who are playing a bigger part than ever, 48% say Clinton and 39% say Palin, with 12% undecided. This is the only place where undecided is more than 10%. One of the reasons Palin was picked was to win over Hillary Clinton supporters. None of the polls so far show this happening.
Another poll asked if the press was treating Palin fairly. It shows that while 51% think that the news media is not treating her fairly, only 24% say that it would make them more likely to vote for John McCain. This is one point where men and women almost agree with just 5% of each saying the news media is helping her. With the men, 52% say they are trying to hurt her and with the women it is 49%. Then again, 32% of the men say the coverage is unbiased as do 37% of the women. The views by party come up with some interesting statistics. With Republicans, 6% think she is being treated fairly. With the Democrats it is 4% and with independents it is 5%. Pretty even so far. However, 80% of the Republicans think they are out to hurt her. With the Democrats it is 28% and with the independents it is 49%. Then there are 9% of the Republicans, 57% of the Democrats and 32% of the independents who are saying the coverage is unbiased. What is most interesting is the fact that 24% of the Democrats and Independents combined are not sure. Will how the public views the treatment by the media affect how they vote?
The last question they posed was who has more experience Barack Obama or Sarah Palin. Palin loses on this one big time. No matter what she says, 49% of the voters say Obama has more experience while 39% say Palin and 12 % are not sure. With the men, Palin gets 44% and Obama 48%. With the women, Palin gets 44% and Obama 49% while 8% of the men and 16% of the women are not sure.
Palin has a long way to go before she makes a difference outside of her own party. The Clinton supporters are not going to flock to her just because she is a woman. That was only part of the reason why they supported Clinton. The other was that they agreed with her ideals and agenda and the overwhelming majority do not agree with Palin, for sure.
Comment by Shaun Pickford on 5 September 2008:
Interesting poll results, however there are some thigns worth noting in your article:
1) Contrary to the liberal talking points the media has been spouting for the last week, Sarah Palin was NOT chosen to woo Clinton voters. That is an added bonus if she can and I’m sure was a FACTOR in the decision, however she was chosen because she is a reformer and can motivate the CONSERVATIVE base of the Republican Party, which McCain has failed to do. Her gender was not the main reason she was chosen.
2) I find it amazing that somebody who has been known to the general public for a week now and is still relatively unknown is only 11% behind Hillary Clinton on the poll over who would be the woman president of choice. The public has known Hillary Clinton for what, 15+ years now?
3) Its overwhelmingly apparent in this poll that people feel Sarah Palin is being treated unfairly in the media. So my question is, with 0 positive press from the liberal biased media, how can one expect a poll to come out favorable on Palin? People need time to get to know her and see her in action on the campaign trail before they can make a true decision. At this point, most people have heard her speak 1 time and are getting the rest of their information from the New York Slimes or US Weekly.
4) Same point as #2 about the poll about who has more experience between Palin and Obama. Wow. With only negative press coming from the media, only 10% more people think Obama has more experience than her. That should scare the Obama camp!!
Lets give it some time before we decided if the public likes Palin or not. Its completely unfair and a disservice to the country to provide biased information on a possible vice president with no chance for the person in question to actually express herself and to expect a poll to reflect a favorable result for her.
Comment by nic on 5 September 2008:
Shaun…
Really, should the press only examine liberal candidates and focus their criticism on what you feel is relevant? As an agnostic, I didn’t care at all for the non-stop circus surrounding Rev. Wright. But I did understand why it happened…b/c a lot of people in this use religion as a cornerstone of their beliefs. I didn’t cry like a baby or blame the conservative media (you really need to look into media ownership, as the notion of a “liberal media” is a complete fallacy).
You and your ilk need to realize that your beliefs aren’t shared by everyone in this country…one of the tenents of democracy is a free market of ideas.
All that said, my personal problem with Palin is that she is a blatant PR ploy. You see Shaun, I’m in PR, so I actually know how messaging and branding work. You’re blind to it, and that’s proof of a good media campaign.
Comment by nic on 5 September 2008:
One more thing Shaun –
Do you have any empirical data backing up your assertion of a media slant? I monitor the cable networks all day at work, and while I noticed a huge amount of neg press on day 3 of the announcement, all the networks have been heavily positive in their coverage of Palin since Wednesday. Your critique strikes me as a completely uninformed, whiny rant….