Sarah Palin

We've been in the field in Florida and Michigan for a few hours now and there's no doubt that Sarah Palin is quite the hit- around 65% of people (in the unweighted counts) who say the Palin choice is influencing them one way or the other are saying it makes them more likely to vote for John McCain.

Here's the thing though: the topline number on whether Palin makes voters more likely to choose McCain or not is meaningless: it's all in the crosstabs. If all the folks saying they like her are Republicans, I'm pretty sure they were voting for McCain anyway. I always thought the discussion of how evangelicals might stay home this year was kind of wishful thinking on behalf of the Democrats- I believe they would have turned out in November to vote for the lesser of two evils even if they weren't thrilled about it. Palin might make them more excited to vote for McCain, but an excited vote counts just the same as an unexcited one, which is of course why Barack Obama isn't blowing McCain out of the water at this point.

We'll be looking carefully when we release these polls not at the toplines on the Palin pick, but how she's playing with independents and Democratic women.