The Sarah Palin effect

A new ABC/Washington Post poll shows a twenty percent swing -- twenty percent -- among white women. From ABC News:

White women have moved from 50-42 percent in Obama's favor before the conventions to 53-41 percent for McCain now, a 20-point shift . . .

Here is a pdf with the detailed data.

It will be interesting to see if these numbers stick.

In any event, Gov. Palin has had an amazing effect on this race, and nobody is real sure just exactly why. My guess? She is a remarkable mixture of 'maverick'-ness and 'social conservative'-ness. This mixture is somewhat of a paradox. Again, it will be interesting if she is able to maintain that mix, or whether she loses her maverick perception over the next fifty-some days, as the social conservative in her becomes more pronounced.