LAT: Sarah Palin's appeal to working-class women may be limited
For many of these critical swing voters, economic interests trump any admiration of the Alaska governor's maternal grit, and some are repelled by her sarcastic jabs at Obama.
By Faye Fiore and Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
...."I wanted Hillary to win so bad, but I saw Sarah, and it just didn't work for me," said (a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cook), taking a break in the empty courtyard of J. Paul's restaurant in a downtown struggling to revive. "I have no retirement. Obama understands it's the economy. He knows how we live." (She), like many others in this former coal-mining town at the western foot of the Appalachians, is the type of voter that both presidential campaigns will target in the final two months. Polls show that working-class women have emerged as one of the most critical categories of swing voters at a time when McCain and Barack Obama have galvanized their party bases but still need more votes to win.
Interviews with some two dozen women here after Palin's convention speech found that these voters were not swayed by the fiery dramatic speeches or compelling personal biographies that marked both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Instead, they were thinking about the price of milk -- nearly $5 a gallon -- or the healthcare coverage that many working families here cannot afford. Even if they admire Palin's attempt to juggle political ambition, an infant son with Down syndrome and a pregnant unwed daughter, these women say that maternal grit is not enough to win their votes....
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Republican delegates and activists in the convention hall delighted in Palin's jabs at the Illinois senator, such as when she poked fun at the columned backdrop for Obama's stadium acceptance speech or mocked him as intent on "turning back the waters and healing the planet." For many women here watching closely, though, that portion of Palin's speech was all they needed to hear. When Palin belittled Obama's history as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side -- suggesting he was a do-little activist while she, as the former mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, had "actual responsibilities" -- (the manager of a senior housing complex), 59, clicked the remote. "That's enough of that. I switched over to 'House Hunters,'" she said with some disgust over dessert with a group of women from the senior housing complex she manages.
One of a dwindling number of coveted undecideds, (she) gets a firsthand view of retirees forced to choose between food and medication. She is not convinced Obama has the experience to be president, but Palin only reinforced her concern that McCain would mean four more years of divisiveness and gridlock....
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If these women are any indication, the threat to Obama's camp is not that they will side with McCain but that they will stay home, as...the restaurant chef and single mother of two, says many people on her block plan to do. But those disenchanted voters could be balanced by newly inspired ones, such as...an emergency medical technician who saves lives every week but cannot afford health insurance. Clinton's gender was enough to awaken her political interest, but Palin's failed to hold it. "I think Palin is a fake. She will run the economy into the ground," (she) said after catching glimpses of the vice presidential nominee's speech between emergency calls. "I have to kill myself every day at work to earn enough to pay for gas to get there. I think Obama is sincere. I think we need a change."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-women7-2008sep07,0,3467857,full.story
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