The key is this:
28% of Hillary voters will vote for McCain. This will not decrease that number.
48% will vote for Obama. This will not decrease that number.
30% say they don't know if they will vote, or, if they will, for whom, we don't know whom they will vote. While I am skeptical of a great swinging to McCain by the Palin choice, even 1/3 of this group swinging could blast Obama out of the water.
Well, McCain didn't quite get 28 percent of the Clinton voters, much less the supposedly higher percentage Palin might bring, now did he....
well, the idea that McCain would ever get 1/3 or more of Hillary supporters was just plain silly. However, McCain could have done more to peel off Hillary supporters than he did: Palin was essentially a gimmick, and after the stock market crash and her disastrous interviews, people saw through it.
What McCain could have done in the 3 months that Obama and Clinton were fighting it out was to put forward credible policy proposals that would appeal to Hillary supporters and reinforce his "Maverick" image. Polls show that the issue Democratic women care about most is health care, and McCain never really put forth a credible proposal on health care the entire campaign. Yes, a certain percentage of Hillary women care only about keeping abortion legal, but McCain never had a chance with those voters, much like Obama never had a chance with the socially conservative, economically populist poor white evangelicals who supported Huckabee.
