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Palin Pick Highlights Clinton's Importance to Obama

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 September 2008, 06:00 CDT

By DeWayne Wickham

Just when it seemed Hillary Clinton had been pushed to the back bench of the presidential campaign, she's being asked to step up her appearances on behalf of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The request came in the wake of presidential candidate John McCain's announcement Friday that he had chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on the GOP ticket.

The Obama campaign is now talking to Clinton about how often she can stump for Obama, who beat her in a bruising fight for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and then ignored the pleas of her supporters to pick the senator of New York as his running mate. Instead, Obama chose Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a foreign policy expert who helps Obama fend off charges that he has little expertise in that area.

But with McCain's pick of Palin, gender will likely trump foreign policy as a pivotal issue in this campaign -- and that has got to worry Obama's campaign.

"We want her to do as much as she is willing to do. She's a great spokesperson for us and for change. ... We want her to do all that her schedule will permit," David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's chief strategist, told Britain's The Daily Telegraph of the outreach to Clinton.

Will Hillary respond?

But getting Clinton to redouble her efforts for Obama is more a matter of need than want. When the Democratic National Convention got underway last week, nearly one-third of the women who backed Clinton during the primaries said they wouldn't vote for Obama in the general election.

"You haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership. No way. No how. No McCain," Clinton said during the convention in a pointed call for her supporters to rally around Obama.

After that speech, many Democratic strategists said Clinton's strong endorsement of Obama -- and the alarm she sounded about a McCain presidency -- would persuade most of her wavering supporters to vote for Obama on Nov. 4.

New York Gov. David Paterson told me that Clinton's address would help her disillusioned female supporters get over their disappointment. "They know they don't want John McCain," said Paterson. But he added many women were asking themselves before Clinton's convention address, "'When is this party going to recognize us? When are they going to stop having an old boy's network?'"

Clinton's call for party unity and an end to the Democratic Party's gender divide might have been undermined by McCain's selection of Palin.

Palin not an easy target

Despite Palin's lack of national and foreign policy experience, going after her won't be easy. Biden will have to be careful when he squares off with her in the Oct. 2 debate between the vice presidential candidates. He'll have to tone down the attack mode he displayed in his convention speech. That kind of combativeness with Palin could cause some undecided female voters and some PUMAs, Clinton supporters whose acronym stands for "Party Unity My Ass," to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, this election might be determined by independent white female voters. While Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly support their party's nominees, there's a big split among independent white voters. Though independent white men back McCain over Obama, 51% to 35%, McCain holds a razor-slim margin among independent white women, 42% to 41%.

The selection of Palin might have already given McCain a small victory. Obama had an 8 percentage-point lead (49% to 41%) over McCain the day after he went before 85,000 people in Denver's Invesco Field to accept his party's presidential nomination. But the following day, it dropped 2 percentage points (48% to 42%) after McCain announced that he had picked Palin as his running mate.

And now, ironically, the Obama campaign will have to lean heavily on Hillary Clinton -- whom many Obama staffers vilified during the primary campaign -- to help stave off a shift among these female voters to McCain. But Clinton has not rushed to defend the parapet of Obama's campaign.

"We should all be proud of Gov. Sarah Palin's historic nomination, and I congratulate her and Sen. McCain," Clinton said in a statement. "While their policies would take America in the wrong direction, Gov. Palin will add an important new voice to the debate."

Important, indeed. Palin's introduction into this campaign is a smart tactical move by McCain. Forget about all the pundits who decry her lack of experience in foreign affairs. As this contest is shaping up, inexperience in that area won't matter much to the voters who will decide this election.

With just a little more than two months before voters go to the polls, the outcome of this contest could well depend on how willing -- and successful -- Clinton will be in persuading disaffected white female voters to pick Obama and Biden over McCain and Palin.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY. (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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