Sarah Palin, man magnet: McCain's veep pick is attracting men who backed Hillary & uniting GOPBY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Saturday, September 13th 2008, 3:04 PM
Fifty-seven percent of men believe Palin is qualified to be vice president, compared with only 43 percent of women.
Republican John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was intended to lure women voters, but it's the guys who are actually getting hooked, new polls show.
One CNN survey this week found that 62% of men have a favorable opinion of Palin - nine points higher than women.
Similarly, 57% of men believe Palin is qualified to be vice president, compared with only 43% among women.
The numbers underscore what many experts have surmised since the get-go: that the 44-year-old mother of five's selection was aimed less at ardent women supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton - who are ideologically opposite to the conservative Palin - and more at the white, moderate working-class men who also supported the former first lady's candidacy.
"I think in some ways Palin does help go after the Hillary voter, but a lot of people confuse that to think it is just women," said John McIntyre, co-founder of RealClear Politics, a Web site that tracks presidential polling.
"It's not just women - it is white, working-class voters in general," said McIntyre. "And I am sure that when the McCain team was looking at the pros and cons, those male Hillary voters were every bit on their mind as women."
The man-surge for Palin is inspiring observations on both sides of the aisle, from the blogger who dubbed her a "right-wing redneck fantasy girl" to feminist Gloria Steinem's comment that "Palin shares nothing but a chromosome" with Clinton.
But
Palin's allure may have a lot more to do with class and ideology than gender, pollsters say.
Keating Holland, CNN's director of polling, noted that men in general tend to tilt Republican, while women lean Democratic.
"So I'm not sure that men are responding to anything other than she has an R - for Republican - after her name," said Holland. "I think partisanship is driving everything here, and if you are Republican you look at her and say, 'Yay!'"
Other polls seem to confirm that Palin's real allure is in her ability to unite the GOP's conservative base, male and female.
One Rasmussen Survey found that 79% of conservatives have a favorable impression of Palin, a figure that drops to 43% among moderates. Likewise, conservatives are twice as likely as moderates to think she is qualified to be President, and five times more likely than liberals.
She certainly has plenty of new fans, judging by the throngs of men and women that have turned up at Palin campaign stops in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and the other mostly rural swing states where she has stumped.
"She's just an amazing woman for the Republican Party," enthused Ted DiBenedetto, 41, of Centreville, Va., at a rally in nearby Fairfax. "She's a hunter, she's a fisherman, she's a reformer, she's got executive experience, and she's run her state national guard.
"I was actually a non-McCain supporter," DiBenedetto said. "When he picked Sarah, that unified the Republican Party."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/09/13/2008-09-13_sarah_palin_man_magnet_mccains_veep_pick.html
