Palin may lure few women to McCain

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate may do little to get votes from Democratic and independent women, CNN reports.

The McCain presidential campaign is clearly trying to woo voters who backed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., as the Democratic Party candidate. When Palin appeared with McCain last Friday, she paid tribute to Clinton and the cracks in the glass ceiling, and the campaign is running commercials targeting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., that build on Clinton's 3 a.m. phone call ads.

A group called PUMA, for Party Unity My A--, supposedly represents Clinton supporters for McCain. But the group's size and reach is uncertain, CNN reported.

Allida Black, a Clinton supporter who said she plans to vote for Obama, said that her first reaction when she heard Palin would be the Republican vice presidential candidate was to laugh.

"I mean laughing not in the sense of 'Oh my God, what has he done?' but "Does he think that's really going to work?'" Black told CNN.

A Gallup tracking poll released this week fond that Obama's support among white men jumped 13 percentage points this week. His support among white women remains unchanged.

A poll in late May and early June indicated that for pro-abortion rights women, including Republicans, abortion is an overriding issue. Palin's anti-abortion rights stance is unlikely to win any of that group over.