ST. PAUL — The names at the top of the ballot on Nov. 4 will be McCain and Obama, but the juicier battle this fall for an important group of swing voters — white working women with children — may be fought between the other two stars of the Republican and Democratic conventions, Sarah Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska and Mr. McCain’s running mate, gave the best speech of her party’s convention on Wednesday night, drawing 37 million television viewers. And she made it clear that she aimed to win over undecided women voters with her own version of the history-making, “I’m one of you” message that Mrs. Clinton employed to great effect in her fight for the Democratic nomination.
Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, has a legacy to protect: She has no intention of turning over her “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling,” as she called her supporters, to Ms. Palin, a social conservative whose policy positions are poison in Hillaryland. What is more, Mrs. Clinton wants to be the one to make history as the first woman to win at the top of a presidential ticket, be it in 2012 or 2016.
The question is, will Mrs. Clinton fight Ms. Palin to help her former rival, Mr. Obama? Clinton advisers say that Mrs. Clinton wants to do everything she can to elect Mr. Obama, so that she cannot be blamed if he loses — yet she also does not want to be too closely associated with him if he does lose, nor to tarnish her own image by taking on a rookie national politician like Ms. Palin and possibly coming up short.
Mrs. Clinton is heading to Florida on Monday to campaign for Mr. Obama. And while his advisers expect her to serve as a counterweight to the McCain-Palin ticket, Clinton advisers are emphatic that Mrs. Clinton does not plan to attack Ms. Palin. Whether that remains the case through the fall is an open question, especially if Ms. Palin starts doing as well with, say, women who watch “The View” as Mrs. Clinton did.
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Palin have little in common beyond their breakout performances at the conventions and the soap opera aspects of their family lives. Mrs. Clinton always faces high expectations; Ms. Palin faced low expectations this week, and benefited from them. Mrs. Clinton can seem harsh when she goes on the attack; Ms. Palin has shown a knack for attacking without seeming nasty. Mrs. Clinton has a lot of experience; Ms. Palin, not so much. Mrs. Clinton is pantsuits; Ms. Palin is skirts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/us/politics/06web-healy.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
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