What white women want

… apparently, a white woman.

Before John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, white women favored Barack Obama over John McCain by 8 percentage points. Among all women, in an ABC News poll, Obama enjoyed an 18-percentage-point lead.

Today, the same poll shows white women now favor John McCain by 12-percent. That’s a 20-point swing!

Is Sarah Palin the ultimate modern woman or her polar opposite?, AdWeek asks in an extensive article today.

As a woman tapped to be vice president, Palin has already made history for the GOP; the move measures up to Obama’s candidacy for Democrats. At the same time, by dint of being a woman, she’s an immediate symbol of modernity, which provides a lot of cover for her staunchly conservative views (no abortion even in the case of rape or incest, for example, and no sex education in schools).

A lot of people criticized McCain for the pick, and suggested merely tapping a woman for the pick would not be enough to lure women who were ideologically mated with Obama. So far, they’re wrong.