(cross-posted at The Christian Dem Home Journal)
Conventional wisdom says that Sarah Palin's presence on the Republican ticket should have helped McCain immensely. After all, a lot of Bible Belters weren't entirely sold on McCain.
Well, if recent trends hold up, Palin is actually hurting McCain in two states where conventional wisdom says she should be helping him--North Carolina and Virginia. If these trends hold, we could not only see an Obama win, but the final nail in the coffin of the religious right.
All indications are that for the first time ever, the religious right was able to elbow one of its own onto the Republican ticket. As we all known, McCain was ready to pick Lieberman, only to be told that the religious right would never accept a pro-choicer on the ticket. While McCain says he picked Palin because he still wanted to shake up the ticket, does anybody really think that he didn't do so with James Dobson and Richard Land holding knives to his back?
The initial school of thought on McCain's choice of Palin is that it gave him a bounce--but not where he needed to get it, in the swing states. However, looking at what can only be described as a dramatic swing to Obama in both North Carolina and Virginia, one has to wonder--is the old mantra of "God, gays and guns" no longer valid? Recent polling trends out of that state suggest that mantra is losing its grip among voters who, moral issues aside, really have no business voting Republican.
Take the trends in Public Policy Polling's latest poll of North Carolina, for instance. The Palin pick has actually made suburban voters LESS likely to vote for Palin by a whopping 16-point margin, and she's basically a wash in small towns (39 percent less likely to vote for McCain, 38 percent more likely). These two demographics are home to most of the state's born-again voters. Palin is also a wash in two of the three regions of the state with the most religious voters--the northeast (41 percent apiece) and the west (37 percent more likely, 35 percent less likely).
The religious right's power in this country has gone in cycles--get to the top, overplay its hand, fall flat on its face for a few years, build back up again. Wash, rinse, repeat. However, if the trends are any indication in two states where Palin should have helped McCain, the religious right's latest instance of overplaying its hand may finally knock it into the hole it's tried to dig under the country for the last 28 years.