The Washington Post reports on its new poll. You know who “she” is:
While she is still widely popular among those in her party, she has lost ground among Republicans generally and among the white evangelicals who are so critical in the early presidential primaries.…Among white evangelicals, Huckabee outpaces Palin and the others by better than 2 to 1.
Actually I like Huck, so I shouldn’t say I’m disappointed. He’s a weathervane, and on various key issues of modern life I think he’s a nutter. But he’s smart and he ran a full-size state for quite a while in a way that is generally accounted competent. Also, he’s got charm and he really can come out with a good speech, whereas Palin gets graded on an outrageous curve. God, I hate her voice!
On the other hand, as a product of secular America I’m used to thinking of evangelicals as people who will believe anything. It turns out some of them have their limits. Maybe I knew that intellectually, but factoring in actual evidence still makes my ideas twitch.
57 percent of Americans say she does not understand complex issues, while 37 percent think she does, a nine-percentage-point drop from a poll conducted in September just before her debate with now-Vice President Biden.
I wonder what the figure was for right after the debate? Biden certainly did well in the “who won” results, but people were talking about how much better Palin did than anyone had expected (since expectations had been set by her Gibson/Couric interviews).
Like most people, I think, I believe that her relatively good reviews for the debate were all about her demeanor — viewers were relieved and surprised when she got thru complete sentences and didn’t try to hide under the podium. But a post-debate “understands complex issues” number would be helpful for verifying that impression.
GOP women are more apt than GOP men to see Palin as a strong leader
Yeah, those GOP men. How do you make it possible for them to see thru an ignorant, posturing jackass? Give the jackass breasts instead of a penis.